The second time music supervisor Gabe Hilfer appears onscreen with coffee in hand for a two-part Zoom chat about cannibalism thriller Fresh, he’s got news.
He’d just wrapped on Winning Time, HBO’s limited series from Adam McKay on the Showtime era L.A. Lakers. It’s a drastically different project than the Daisy Edgar-Jones- and Sebastian Stan-led Hulu horror movie he’s logged on to talk about. Different also from the 130-plus other music credits he’s racked up since the mid-2000s.
Hilfer’s résumé runs the genre gamut, with his hand on projects like Black Swan, Sausage Party, If Beale Street Could Talk, Crazy Rich Asians, Birds of Prey, Don’t Look Up, Entourage, Luke Cage, The Mindy Project, Dickinson, Superstore and Nine Perfect Strangers — to name a few.
That kind of diversity is an advantage on a movie classified as a romance, comedy, thriller and social horror. It’s also possible because Hilfer doesn’t lead with his own music style, which he says was influenced chiefly by underground hip-hop and Fiona Apple, which he heard growing up in early ’90s New York City.
Instead, the music supervisor leans into the aesthetic of his directors; he’s a “musical agnostic” who likens himself to a DJ giving “the audience what they’re looking for.” For this set, he’s working with Mimi Cave on her feature debut, which comes after directing short films and music videos for 12 years. Cave considers her own music video experience an unconscious “part of the fabric of what I do,” while Hilfer says he’s “met his match” in the director when it comes to musical vision.
This perfect musical union can be chalked up to their collaboration style, with Cave coming in ready with opinions and a stack of playlists. “Debating music with her was one of the most fun parts of this entire process,” Hilfer recalls.
“I always really was a fangirl of soundtracks and scores,” Cave says. “When I was younger, the first…