Music supervisors, the professionals in charge of building the soundtrack for films and TV shows, have a role that is mostly “behind the scenes and in service to a larger project,” says Gabe Hilfer, one of the top supervisors in the industry today. In fact, despite their major role in shaping the sounds of visual media, supervisors don’t even have a category for their work at the Grammys or Oscars. Instead, public praise typically comes in the form of a viral moment when a song that a supervisor commissioned or licensed becomes a breakout hit, à la “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, which hit new heights after a placement in Stranger Things.

Hilfer, who has been working as a supervisor for two decades on projects like The Black Swan, Entourage and Crazy Rich Asians, has had a couple of those moments of his own. His work on Suicide Squad, for example, yielded the Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 hit “Heathens” by Twenty One Pilots, which was written for the film. “I love that at this point the song has totally taken on a life of its own,” he says. “It’s really gratifying to see.”

While the Grammys and Oscars don’t have categories dedicated to them, there’s one major award show that does: the Emmys. This year, Hilfer broke the record for the most number of nominations in the music supervision category, holding three of six eligible slots. He says learning about the nominations was “legitimately shocking,” adding that “when the nominations came out, I logged on and then I saw my name and I thought, ‘Oh, amazing!’ It’s an awesome feeling,” Hilfer says. “Then I saw it again, then I saw it a third time, and I thought, ‘This must be a mistake.’” 

Specifically, Hilfer earned the nods for his work on The Studio, The White Lotus and The Righteous Gemstones — each of which called for a distinctive musical palette. For the modern film industry satire The Studio, for example, Hilfer synched Seth Rogen’s shenanigans as a fictional studio executive to songs like “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” by Dean Martin and “It Had to Be You” by Billie Holiday, evoking a bygone era of Hollywood and even nodding at classic films like When Harry Met Sally and Goodfellas and more. The acclaimed ensemble show The White Lotus called for Thai music — a tall order, given the country’s language barrier and copyright and licensing customs that are different from the U.S. And megachurch comedy The Righteous Gemstones, supervised alongside fellow nominee DeVoe Yates, called for Contemporary Christian Music (CCM)

“I’m very proud of these three very different projects,” Hilfer says. “I’m just here to facilitate the showrunners’ visions. So, [these nominations] are very flattering but I didn’t expect it in any way.”

Music is handled in post-production, and it’s common that movies that go over budget sometimes dip into their music fund to accommodate. How do you navigate these situations as a music supervisor when your budget is slashed and plans must change? 

Music, a lot of times, can be the stepchild of all production because you don’t pay for the licensed music until the project comes out. So it’s a cost that can be punted until the very end of the process, and it is oftentimes like a pot that is borrowed from throughout. When music’s budget is stolen from during production, we have to deal with that reality in post. There’s no simple answer as to how, but it’s really about communication — over-communication, really, and just explaining the realities of the costs. What I tell people is, “If you have $10,000 in the music budget or $10 million in the music budget, we’ll get it done and we’ll make it incredible.” The only thing that changes is the size and notoriety of the songs you can get. If the intention is to want to do giant, well-known songs from the ‘90s, you need a lot of money. If you run out of money, you could still do really cool songs from the ‘90s, they’ll just be bands that most people have not heard of. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to be of any lower quality. And in fact, some of those are the coolest opportunities to find really awesome bands that people forgot about.

The film industry has been through a lot: the pandemic, the strikes and more. “Survive ‘Til ‘25” was the mantra I always heard from the film business. Now that we are in 2025, how does the state of the film industry feel to you? 

I think whatever rhymes with ‘26 is probably the new mantra. [Laughs] But I think there’s still things that break through. There’s still projects people talk about. Even though the things that break through might be tougher to figure out ahead of time, there’s still big hits. I think the music industry would tell you the same thing: You can have an incredible song, and it has all the elements that should make it a pop smash. But a lot of things need to coalesce around that to make it actually work out that way. It is harder but not impossible to do well. 

Still, there are also projects that take you totally by surprise. Hits that no one saw coming. I worked on A Minecraft Movie this year, and it was obviously a giant piece of IP, but I would venture to say that it exceeded expectations, making almost a billion dollars at the box office. 

A Minecraft Movie was one of the biggest breakouts of the year, and it presented a musical challenge. The game Minecraft had an original score from when it first came out by composer Daniel “C418” Rosenberg that’s still beloved by fans. This film adaptation uses a different composer, but there were still homages to the original score weaved in. When you’re adapting IP, how do you ensure a balance between bringing in new elements to the music and honoring the tradition of its original score? 

That one was very deliberate. Minecraft has such lifelong fans, so we knew that it was important to feature some of C418’s music in the movie. We wanted to pay homage to the fans and the game. But ultimately, it’s a scripted, fictional, totally new interpretation of the story of Minecraft. Jared Hess, the director of the film, really had a vision and a tone that was the North Star the entire time. Mark Mothersbaugh was our composer. He was one of the original members of Devo and has done some of the most incredible, quirky film scores of the last 20 years. He was a great fit, a total character of a person, and a brilliant musician. I knew he understood what we needed to keep the sanctity of the game.

One of the three shows you are nominated for at the Emmys this year is The Studio, which has a lot of classic music in there: Louis Prima, Chet Baker. Was it a deliberate choice to juxtapose the chaotic modern Hollywood on screen with songs that call to mind Hollywood of yesteryear? 

Absolutely. Completely deliberate. The show is obviously modern. It takes place in a fictional movie studio. But the idea was that the majority of the music that was the source music in particular would either be reminiscent of an old time, a more traditional, idealized, glamorous Hollywood — or we’d reference other movies. The show ends with “The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,” a classic Disney tune. The first episode ends with “Then You Kiss Me,” which was famously used in Goodfellas. It’s not overt. We’re not like, “This song is from Sleepless in Seattle” or whatever, but the intention was absolutely there to make it feel more classic — like this glamorized old Hollywood world.

The score for The Studio was very percussive. Why was that the approach you wanted to take? 

Sometimes shows come in, and they have a composer they want to work with. They know exactly what they want to do from the very beginning. That was not the case on the show. So there was a bit of a discovery situation here where they shot some episodes, we were putting them together, and we’re sending them temp scores [industry parlance for scores from other movies used as placeholders until original scores are finished] to figure out what fit. The score from Birdman was working well on a couple scenes, and we found ourselves tempted to do more and more of it. Then we called up Antonio Sanchez, Birdman’s composer, to see if he was around. He was super into it, and he came on board. It’s funny, I’ve talked to people who say they can’t watch the show. It gives them too much anxiety, and I feel like that’s exactly the point. The score plays a big role in building that feeling.

You’re also nominated for season three of The White Lotus. This season was set in Thailand, so how did you educate yourself on Thai music for this? And also, how did you navigate the different cultural and copyright standards between the two countries?

Once they were like, “We’re doing it in Thailand,” then it was my job to just immerse myself in as much Thai music as I possibly could, just to get a sense of what it sounds like and what styles of Thai music would lend themselves best to the show itself. Then I did a little bit of reverse engineering, honestly, because you’re right, it’s difficult to license music from countries that have different copyright laws. It’s difficult to license music from people who don’t speak English and don’t understand what we’re trying to do. There was a skepticism and fear we faced where people thought we were trying to steal their music. So I went to a lot of companies that we work with that have big international presences, and I was like, “We’re gonna be doing The White Lotus in Thailand. Send me anything and everything — throw the kitchen sink at me.” I got 2,000 to 3,000 songs and went through them all. 

There were a couple companies in particular who helped us. One was Songtaew, which is run by a Thai woman, Jace, who studied in the U.S., and a British man named Andy, who lives in Thailand now. They were invaluable. They helped us track down individual writers and artists in Thailand who were skeptical of Westerners trying to use their music and exploit them. Finding people on the ground who were entrenched locally with the music community is a real asset.

There was a very public falling out between the composer, Juan Cristóbal Tapia de Veer, and director Mike White. For that reason, the composer is no longer coming back for season four. Are you coming back for season four? And if so, are you helping with the search for the next composer?

Yes, I’m going back for season four, unless somebody tells me something that I don’t know, and yes, we’ve talked about trying to figure out what the composer situation will be for season four. But it’s early days. There’s such a distinct, iconic sound, so I think it’s going to be a big creative discussion about how we can take this moving forward. 

Are there often situations where composers and directors will have creative disagreements, and then, as the music supervisor, do you find yourself ever having to be the arbiter in the middle of creative differences?

No. Every once in a while there are differences in opinion. That happens when artists of different mediums collaborate. But the thing that is important to remember is that there is usually one person in charge, and it’s their creative vision that is ultimately the thing everyone follows. On The White Lotus, the camera lenses, the costumes, the actors, the hairstyles, the score, the songs — all of those decisions are ultimately Mike’s. There’s not a lot of disagreement that I have to arbitrate in that way because usually the deciding factor is just the person in charge. 

Your third nomination for music supervision is for The Righteous Gemstones, which satirizes megachurches and evangelicalism. I imagine for a show like this, you’d need a lot of Contemporary Christian music, but also this subject might come off as offensive to some Christian artists. As a music supervisor, did you encounter difficulties in licensing CCM?

Yes, it’s tricky. We have been denied by more than one person who was like, “I appreciate what you’re doing, and I would love to take the money, but unfortunately, my beliefs do not allow me to be part of this,” or, “It wouldn’t be true to myself if I let my music be in the show.” So we’ve taken a couple denials. But people have also been very receptive. Obviously this is a satire of a fictional megachurch and the corruption and ridiculousness in it, but we’re never making fun of the music or the songs, so people have been open to it. People want to laugh. I don’t know anyone who is out there advocating for corruption! One of the things we do in this process, though, is that we’re very honest about what we are licensing the music for, because we want to try to avoid a situation where someone is upset and surprised. But the reality is, on any project sometimes the answer is no, you can’t use a certain song, and that’s okay. 

You were just nominated in three of the six slots for the Music Supervision category at the Emmys, which is the record number of concurrent nominations in that category. What was your reaction to that? 

It was legitimately shocking. I had been nominated for The White Lotus before, so I did think that there was a shot there. But I also thought that the amount of work we put into The Studio was clear. And I was happy about the good critical reception that show was getting, too. Anecdotally, many people were texting and emailing me, being like, “I love this show.” So I thought maybe there was a chance I’d get nominated for that. But in absolutely no world did I think I would get nominated for more than one thing, and three? 

I’m very proud of these three very different projects. As a music supervisor whose job is behind the scenes and in service to a larger project, I’m very rarely front and center. While it feels incredibly flattering and special, I’m also just not someone who wants the spotlight. It’s not about me. I’m just here to facilitate the showrunners’ visions. I didn’t expect it in any way.