Key Change: Rian Johnson on Wagner's 'Das Rheingold'

Hrishikesh Hirway· Host0:00

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. This episode contains explicit language. This is Key Change, where I talk to fascinating people about the music that changed their lives. My guest today is director Rian Johnson, which is exciting for me because I've been a huge fan of his ever since seeing his first feature film, Brick, in 2006. Since then, he's made six more feature films, including Looper in 2012, Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2017, the murder mystery Knives Out in 2019, and his most recent movie, another in the Knives Out series, Wake Up Dead Man, which is already out in theaters and comes to Netflix on December 12th. I talked to Rian about a piece of music that had a profound impact on him, which was- The overture to Das Rheingold, the opera by Richard Wagner.

Rian Johnson· Guest0:57

Call him Richard. His friends call him Richard. [laughs] So this is either gonna be really fun or really pretentious and boring.

Hrishikesh Hirway· Host1:04

For the record, I think it was really fun. Here we go.

Rian Johnson· Guest1:07

I think what people think with Wagner is the Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Hrishikesh Hirway· Host1:13

Yeah. Kill the Wabbit.

Rian Johnson· Guest1:14

Kill the Wabbit.

Hrishikesh Hirway· Host1:14

Kill the wabbit. Kill the wabbit. Kill the wabbit Also, by the way, if any true opera scholars or fans are listening, I don't know when I'm talk...

Rian Johnson· Guest1:26

I'm a casual, I'm a fan of opera [laughs] I'm not like a... I probably say dumb