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While the 2026 film “Heart of the Beast” may be set in Alaska (with New Zealand as a stand-in), the music is all Hollister, courtesy of film composer and resident Jared Michael Fry.
When he last spoke to BenitoLink, Fry had contributed music to the 2024 film “The Beekeeper,” directed by David Ayer and starring Jason Statham. Working with the same director and star, he was given the job of writing his first full score, for 2025’s “A Working Man.”
“All I knew before was to write music for film, send it off, and call it done,” Fry said. “Now, I had to be part of this extended process of recording, mixing and finding all the people I needed to get in touch with.”
“Heart of the Beast” follows Army Special Forces veteran James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and Odin, a former combat scout dog, as they trek toward civilization through a forbidding wilderness following the crash of his private plane.
Drawing on a wide range of conventional and traditional instruments and vocalists, Fry spent 18 months creating a soundtrack that is ethereal, primal and engaging, infusing the film with dramatic tension and deep spirituality.
BenitoLink: How did you get started on “Heart of the Beast?”
FRY: I got the script right before they started filming. I discussed it with David and Brian Lawson, the music editor. Then I started at the piano, drawing on the feelings, emotions, and themes from the script. I knew it was a survival story and a love story. It was dangerous and beautiful. I wrote tons of different ideas. Without the picture at that stage, I was free to just write, start something and feel it out.
What are you picking up out of the script?
A feeling. That’s it. That’s all I can really say. Just a lot of meditating on James and Odin. What their relationship means, and how they fought through the perilous wilderness. It started off with the love theme, just their intimacy, and then the sound and the setting.
I wanted to capture a universal feeling, so I used a lot of world sounds. There was a spirituality to it—mortality and death—thinking about all these things with mystical curiosity. Everything about the instruments and the choices I made evoked the deeper, ancient feeling I got from the story.
David would say, “What does the mountain sound like? What do the trees sound like? What does the water sound like?” Those discussions made vocals a huge part of the score. The Yupik have a word for it—”ella”—and it describes God, wind, water, that feeling, that presence. That encapsulated everything that we were aiming for.
You incorporated Native American drumming and vocals. Obviously, that’s a nod to the Alaska setting.
Absolutely. Whatever the story needed, I did. This is Native American, but it’s Alaskan, and it’s Yupik. It’s in their culture. We did a lot of shell shakers and other percussion, like a low surdo and a frame drum. Authentic? No, but a nod to their style of music and playing, which is to keep the rhythm.
An Alaskan group, Pamyua, sang in Yupik, and their manager wrote the lyrics for the score. I demoed it with more Native American elements; then they heard it, and we worked on it to make it more their culture and change the words.
When his plane’s going down, it’s just vocals and percussion. In my head, the vocals are calling him to his death, and it’s building, building, building. So the percussion gets crazier and crazier, kind of like a medicine man would, but scary, dark, and from the other side.
The music has a real sense of spirituality, both in the ethereal scenes where it’s landscape and angelic voices, and in more stressful action scenes, where you get a sense that the music is providing spiritual assistance.
There are moments where death is dragging him in, and the vocals describe that. There are moments where they’re encouraging him and beautiful. The vocals, especially in those perilous moments, are always speaking to that. They’re calling him to death in a lot of ways, or encouraging him.
There’s a perspective in the music where once he crashes and comes out, he’s living in a space where maybe he’s been given this chance to come to terms with death, but also, at the same time, save his best friend.
There are also long periods of absolute silence. How does that balance with the music?
Where you choose to put music is so important, and just as important is where you don’t. Certainly, with this film in the wilderness, we couldn’t wallpaper it with film score. We’d lose that feeling of nature. I think it’s part of that immersive quality that we wanted. In the end, we found that no music here is better.
At what point do you start joining your sketches to the film?
As soon as they have a cut to share. On this one, I got a little bit of a sizzle reel, maybe eight minutes, that they could show—early stuff, just kind of best-of moments. Those were the first times I saw images. I had been working and writing at the piano and had tons of music already, different themes, some sketches and ideas, some more fleshed out. That was my first chance to see if it was meshing.
How much did that lock in what you were going to be doing?
I think it was a progressive comfort with what I was doing. The first time playing what I had, some of it was exciting. The main title ideas felt really beautiful. But then you’re always second-guessing and questioning: “Is this it? Do I need to rewrite this? Is this enough?”
There’s so much second-guessing and doubt throughout. But it was exciting to see the potential and to see the images. There were a few pieces that just clicked and felt like, “This is going to work. This is it already.” When it’s right, it’s right.
Were they sending it scene by scene, or did they send you a cut of the film?
We get typical film delivery. Imagine an hour-and-a-half film broken into five to six reels, usually by act. Early versions are usually longer, so you’re dealing with an hour and 45 minutes to two hours, and we’ve got to get this down to 90 minutes.
Constructing a score that flows from A to B, beginning to end, means you’re juggling the score when a scene moves from the fourth act to the second. That can throw off your musical arc. There was always discussion: “Do we have enough theme? Have we heard this theme too much right now?” Always discovering.
How do you keep from overdramatizing something?
It’s hard. I want to overdramatize quite a bit. That was definitely a challenge on this project. Finding simple ideas, being confident in what you’re building, and not throwing fluff around to “Mickey Mouse” the scene or overdramatize it. Trusting the picture, the actors, and the edit to tell a story, and then you don’t have to overcompensate.
Even though it’s in this massive, expansive, outdoor setting with wide elements, it’s still really an intimate film.
How do you convey that, right? That was huge. I heard someone say once about film scoring, “Don’t write for an ensemble larger than the room that the characters are in.” We always kept in mind that this was larger than life, but also intimate between James and Odin. It is a personal, individual love story.
If they’re in a tiny tent, don’t write a full orchestra for it. A solo voice or solo woodwind fits in a tent and feels close. But when he’s flying the plane, and you see mountain vistas, that’s full choir. Arranging the groups that way makes the melody soar over those landscapes.
Do you have a favorite scene in the film where the music really clicked for you?
So many. I always loved the scene after the campfire at the beginning, called “A Storm Is Coming” on the album. That’s five cues in one. I loved how the string writing built as he turns out the campfire and says, “Well, we gotta pack up.”
It builds and hits, and as he pulls the plane in to load it back up, you go from orchestral, dramatic writing to a downbeat where we first hear the gamelan, with a pedaled bass. Then a solo woodwind plays the “Reckoning” theme. It just screams in a beautiful way, evocative and pregnant with adventure. I love the way the music hits those scenes. It’s simple, but it felt like good storytelling.
How did it feel to finish it off?
So good. But it’s not over until it’s over. Little things bring you back in. Even after recording the orchestra, the filmmakers wanted to hear something slightly different at the end of the movie. Then, after we delivered the film, we went back into the studio to remix the music for the album release.
What do you think about AI’s incursion into music?
It’s tough. The work I do is very personal, a human connection talking to a director. When we were recording in London, particularly the London Voices, the music choked us all up in the booth. It was an emotional human connection. I went out to thank the musicians and could barely talk. I gave the choir master a hug, and he said, “It’s so good, isn’t it? Human voices.” That experience of doing things with people can’t be replicated. Hopefully that lives on.
“Heart of the Beast” is now showing at Hollister’s Premiere Cinema. Fry’s next project is an indie thriller horror film starring John Travolta titled “Ed,” about a sentient crash test dummy. It’s set for release next year.
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