Alexandre Desplat Wiki: Film Composer, Net Worth, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ & Facts To Know

Alexandre Desplat is a talented French film composer for movies like ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’. Read more about his net worth and other interesting facts.

Who is Alexandre Desplat?

Alexandre Michel Gerard Desplat was born in 1961. He is a French film composer. Desplat has won several awards for his work, including an Academy Award for his soundtrack to the film, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’. Desplat has also received eight Academy Award nominations, eight Cesar nominations out of which he has won three, seven BAFTA nominations out of which he has won two, seven Golden Globe Award nominations out of which he has won two and six Grammy nominations (winning two). Desplat is a very talented film composer who has worked on a variety of independent as well as commercially successful films including, The Queen, The Golden Compass, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 & Part 2, The King’s Speech, The Danish Girl, Moonrise Kingdom, Argo, Rise of the Guardians, Zero Dark Thirty, Godzilla, The Imitation Game, Unbroken, and The Shape of Water. The classical soundtrack of his movie, Godzilla has been critically acclaimed. His film, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, has wonderful variations played with a harp, keyboard and piano. The pop, jazz and classical soundtracks blend melodiously in the film, some with dialogues and some to create striking emphasis on particular scenes. ‘The Shape of Water’ has some 20 soundtracks put together melodiously by Alexandre Desplat. Alexandre Desplat has been nominated for Oscar 2018 for Best Original Music Score for the film, ‘The Shape of Water’. Oscar 2018 will be held on March 4, 2018.

Early life and career

Alexandre Desplat was born in Paris to a French father and a Greek mother. Desplat has an elder sister, Marie-Christine, also known as Kiki, who is the lead singer of the jazz band, “Certains l’Aiment Chaud”. He also has another sister, Rosalinda Desplat. Desplat began playing the piano right from the age of five. He also started playing the trumpet and flute. He became a skilled performer and composer as he grew up. He had interest in a wide range of music ranging from early twentieth-century French composers, like Ravel and Debussy, to jazz and world music. Very soon in his life, he had decided to become a film composer and he got his first film, ‘Le Souffleur’ in 1986. While recording music for this film, he met Dominique Lemonnier who was a violinist. She later became his wife, favorite soloist and also his artistic director. Alexandre Desplat continued to work on many Hollywood films since then but he got his first break in 2003 with the soundtrack for the film, ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’. Desplat has composed soundtracks for many French films, Hollywood and even incidental music for numerous films like, Lapse of Memory (1992), Family Express (1992), Regarde Les Hommes Tomber (1994), Les Péchés Mortels (1995), César-nominated Un Héros Très Discret (1996), Une Minute de Silence (1998), Sweet Revenge (1998), Le Château des Singes (1999), Reines d’un Jour (2001), the César-nominated Sur mes lèvres (2002), Rire et Châtiment (2003), Syriana (2005), the César-winner The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), The Queen (2006), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010), The Ghost Writer (2010), The King’s Speech (2010), Daniel Auteuil’s remake of La Fille du Puisatier (2011), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), The Imitation Game (2014), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Desplat has even composed some individual songs that have been sung in films by various artists like Akhenaton, Kate Beckinsale, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Valérie Lemercier, Miosotis, and Catherine Ringer. Desplat received the BMI Film Music Award, World Soundtrack Award and the European Film Award in 2007. The same year, he also received his first Oscar Award nomination for Best Original Score for the film, ‘The Queen’. Desplat also won the Silver Berlin Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for Best Film Music in ‘The Beat that My Heart Skipped’. He received his second Oscar nomination for ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ and his third one for ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’ in 2010. In 2011, Desplat began to write music for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. He got to work on the second part after his work on the first part soundtrack in 2010 delighted everyone. In 2011, Desplat worked on the sequel to the 2008 film ‘Largo’ which was well received. He also worked on ‘The Tree of Life’, ‘A Better Life’, ‘La Fille du Puisatier’, ‘Carnage’ and ‘Ides of March’. Desplat has also rendered his musical soundtracks to ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’, ‘Cloclo’, ‘Rise of the Guardians’, ‘Rust and Bone’, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ and ‘Argo’. He won an Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA nomination for ‘Argo’. Desplat was to head the jury at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. He had written five major scores during 2014 including ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ which also got him his first Academy Award.

Net worth of the film composer

The net worth of Alexandre Desplat is $2 million.

A film sounds incomplete without its own unique soundtrack and Alexandre Desplat is just perfect for his task. His melodious soundtracks render soul and life to a film and his music often relates so well with the film that it mostly it becomes its identity.