Music in film and television has the power to transport you and immediately establish the vibe of a scene. Think about the menacing energy the Jaws theme gives off with just two notes or the YouTube trailer edits that, with some clever editing and score choices, effectively turn The Silence of the Lambs into a rom-com or reimagine Mrs. Doubtfire as a thriller film. Sound is an integral aspect of any movie or show, but it’s especially important to Agatha All Along, which came with sky-high musical anticipation since its very namesake is a reference to the WandaVision smash hit that took the world by storm.
Rest assured, the show exceeds expectations, giving us not only another banger in the form of “The Ballad of the Witches’ Road” but also a soundtrack chock-full of breathtaking instrumentals. A great score can make humor even funnier, scary moments even more terrifying, and romance even spicier, and Agatha All Along’s manages to do all that and more. The tone of the show drastically oscillates, sometimes within the same scene, as it effortlessly combines hilarious comedy, chilling horror, and heartwrenching character drama and wraps it up with a delightfully immersive and witchy fantasy bow.
Composer Michael Paraskevas, along with frequent collaborator Christophe Beck and songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, is responsible for finding the sound of the Witches’ Road and all who dare walk it. Fanversation got the chance to speak with him about his work at San Diego Comic-Con. During the conversation, he reveals how Kathryn Hahn’s performance informed the score, the WandaVision Easter eggs you might have missed, how a scene in Episode 2 was almost completely different, a surprising cameo on the soundtrack during Agatha and Rio’s kiss in Episode 8, and much more.
FANVERSATION: My first, and I feel like most burning, question is how do you go about naming these tracks? “Coochie Coochie Coo” and “Old Ass Curse” are particularly amazing to me.
MICHAEL PARASKEVAS: Thank you. [Laughs] Those two are from the show. Agatha says the first to Rio in a scene, and we were like, “We’re keeping that for sure.” And Jen says the second one. I always thought it was so funny. Cue titles are one of my favorite parts of the process. It’s just so fun. Sometimes, the names change throughout the process as we’re working on it, but sometimes, I’ll keep a Google doc of like, “I think this would be a fun name, but I don’t know which cue yet.” There are some that get rejected, too, by marketing or licensing. I had a Ouija board one, but apparently, Ouija is licensed, so we weren’t allowed to use it.
Is there a favorite that you have from this show?
PARASKEVAS: Those two are definitely good ones. I liked “Lucid Spellbound Divination,” which spells out LSD. [Laughs]
I read your No Film School Article, and in it, you mention that you listened to Kathryn’s performance to help inform the score. Can you give an example or two of that? Because I was always fascinated with how she manipulates her voice in certain scenes.
PARASKEVAS: The way she manipulates her voice, her movements, her facial expressions — everything she does is so layered and calculated, and it adds so much depth to her character. I always think about in Episode 7 when they’re all in the dungeon, and they reveal that Rio is Death. They’re literally all about to die, but then she’s, like, cracking jokes, and it’s funny, but the music is serious underneath it. We talk about how to balance that, and a lot of it is just letting Kathryn do her thing. All the actors, really. I feel like all the actors have moments where they’re switching emotional tones so quickly, and we try to stay out of the way and support it. There are moments where we can lean into it, and other moments, you pull back.
I’m curious how the music you worked on with WandaVision, particularly the big Agatha scenes like the Salem flashback and things, informed how you approached the music for this show.
PARASKEVAS: That was actually one of our very first conversations. In WandaVision, Agatha is this big villain, and she’s just like pure evil, and you don’t really understand her motivations in the way that we do in this show. We only use the WandaVision theme in one place in Agatha All Along, and it’s when the ghost of her mom visits. She literally says, “I wish you were dead,” so when we were digging into those deep mommy issues, that’s when we were like, “This is a good time to bring back that theme that you first hear in WandaVision when she’s in Salem being confronted at the stake.” And then, for the new show, we decided to come up with a new theme to hit all those different layers and make her more sympathetic. She’s playful, she’s funny, but then, we can also turn it and get more emotional, especially as we understand her and Nicky.
That leads perfectly into my next question, because I love her theme, especially the almost medieval and playful part of it. How did you decide on her sound? Particularly that aspect, because that really stands out to me every time I hear it.
PARASKEVAS: We talked about, for the show as a whole, how witchy we wanted the music to sound. And we came up with this foundation, especially for her theme, that includes hammer dulcimer — this folksy instrument that was common in Appalachia and was evocative of that time period. We have some vocals, but in WandaVision, we used a lot more vocals in the score. For Agatha, we were much more particular about when we used it to not lean into the tropes too much. We were much more about picking those moments.
We also play our theme a lot on this detuned piano, and that was more of the brokenheartedness with Nicky and this painful nostalgia and this sense of memory and longing in a way. We wanted to be able to have all these different colors within her theme and then easily be able to extrapolate them out and find specific moments to focus in on those different elements.
I noticed Nicky’s theme is essentially just another version of hers. How did you land on that? Did you try out other things that were particular to him, or was it always hers with a twist?
PARASKEVAS: It was always together, because Nicky is literally born of her, and they’re very much part of each other. They also have the Ballad that we come to learn is indicative of their relationship, so we didn’t really think Nicky needed another theme on top of that. We wanted to make sure that all these elements stay connected.
I wanted to ask about the collaboration element, because obviously, you and Christophe Beck have a collaboration of your own, but then the Lopezes are doing their own thing. How do these two duos work together to create a sound that is so consistent and works so well together?
PARASKEVAS: Funny enough, Chris and I have collaborated with the Lopezes many times now. Chris did the first Frozen, and I helped out on the second one, and then WandaVision, of course. I think there’s just great respect between everyone. When we come on board, the song’s already written and in its places, so we find ways to support it. We were singing the Ballad for months.
Who wasn’t?
PARASKEVAS: [Laughs] I think it’s fun when you have that as an anchor to the show and, again, picking moments where we play the Ballad in the score or sort of invoke it. My favorite are these two bookend moments. At the end of Episode 2, after they go down to the basement and see the Road for the first time, originally, there was another song — a needle drop — there, but then we tried putting score instead. We did this evocative version of the Ballad, which, on the album, is called the Score Version, and it added this mystical quality that was really cool. And then, in Episode 8, when they come back and see the shoes again, we play a twisted version — we call it the “upside down version” — of that, and so we harken back to that initial scene, but now, it’s much darker. It still has these ethereal vocal effects and detuned alto flute, but now, it’s playing in a much harsher, darker way. It’s fun finding moments where you bridge these things that, subconsciously, people recognize.
I think that the score is perfect there, but now I’m curious, what was the needle drop?
PARASKEVAS: I can’t remember. We all liked the needle drop, but then, once we tried the score, it transformed the scene. I think initially, the song played it more humorously. It was fun and sort of like, “We’re kicking off an adventure!” It’s interesting how the score captured a different element of that same exact scene.
I think it’s good that it’s more serious. That’s a very powerful, weighty moment. People know some of the Easter eggs — teasing the Ballad and Wanda’s theme — but are there Easter eggs or little details that people haven’t noticed, or that you just wish that you got a chance to talk about more?
PARASKEVAS: One of my favorite Easter eggs is a personal one. I grew up a band geek and can play clarinet, so when we first started, I was recording all these weird noises and stuff. And then I actually had [my partner] Kaitlyn [Ali], who doesn’t play clarinet formally—
ALI: At all!
PARASKEVAS: —take a jab at it and recorded her making all these weird noises. In Episode 8, there’s a moment right before Agatha and Rio kiss, and time stands still, and you just hear, off in the distance, this little warbly [vocalizing] ethereal noise, and it’s her playing. I didn’t tell Jac or any of the filmmakers. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t even tell Kaitlyn. I was like, “When the show comes out, I hope you can find it.” [Laughs]
ALI: I literally almost passed out.
I want to ask about that almost kiss right after the scar conversation in Episode 4, because it’s such a special moment, and I feel like the score heightens it. You accomplish so many things with it, because it’s sort of sensual, but it’s also a bit sad and unsettling. I know it’s also a main part of Rio’s theme. Can you talk about finding that sound?
PARASKEVAS: Rio’s theme was one of my favorite things to work on. Her character is just so interesting and unique and has this very special quality of eerie etherealness, and then, on top of that, the duality of her relationship with Agatha. We wrote most of the themes before we ever scored to picture just from conversations and talking about the concept of the show. That was one of the first ones we did, and when it came time to work on that scene, we literally dropped it in, and it lined up perfectly. It’s one of those moments that you kind of hope you find on every project where everyone just knows it works.
I think it also speaks to their performance in that scene as well. It’s so engaging, and you hang on by every word and every little moment and reaction. I always think about Kathryn’s face. She has this tiny little smile, and it’s so subtle, but the music’s really big right there, and it just kind of reinforces that. I think it’s really cool to see how they don’t even have to say anything to express something really profound and really impactful. And then, of course, Reddit, like, blows up the next day. [Laughs] It’s really powerful.
I love that you capture both sides of Rio — you capture the Green Witch but also Death. The intense parts give me this doomy, almost chainsaw vibe. Can you talk about finding the “scarier” side of her?
PARASKEVAS: We talk a lot about how she’s the unstoppable force of nature, so we have this relentless, pounding percussion that’s very in your face and driving and straight. And then we have these bendy notes that are in the softer, more delicate parts. But when it gets more aggressive and intense, it’s also in your face and really distorted. We recorded bass clarinet and then processed and messed around with it and were like, “Well, this sounds cool.” We talked a lot about organic sounds that are twisted and manipulated so they sound familiar but foreign at the same time.
Also, liminal spaces. She kind of exists within these parallel worlds. You literally see her cut the curtain and drift in and out. And that cue, in particular, is when she comes to collect Alice’s body. You see Alice’s dead body, and you see Alice’s spirit, and they kind of go off into the dark void. It’s a really cool, poetic, and powerful moment. I love the idea and concept of liminal spaces. And again, I think her theme, in particular, really speaks to that duality. It was fun getting a chance to do that.
It’s so powerful, and I feel like the percussion almost gives it a ticking clock vibe. I sort of got that with the potion trial, too, when they’re running out of time. Was that something that you purposefully integrated in?
PARASKEVAS: Yeah, definitely. You’ll see that throughout each episode — whenever they’re in the trials, there’s some sort of ticking clock, and it takes on the form of whatever genre that we’re leaning into. Episode 7, Lilia’s episode, is kind of the fullest embodiment of that. It’s constant percussive pulses, and there are these bells and metallic bowls that keep you on the edge of your seat that get layered and more intense. It’s this giant, torturous grandfather clock in a way.
I literally remember getting chills when she laid the cards down, and then you’d see the flashbacks of the characters looking like those cards. The music cues were really hitting it.
PARASKEVAS: That’s one of my favorite cues — the “Queen of Cups” sequence. We talked about, every time she lays a card down, we want to feel that gut punch. So that was really working backwards of like, “We’re just gonna keep building, building, building this intensity,” and I think it’s really cool how it’s all edited together. And again, her performance in it is amazing. This is another one of those scenes where the filmmaking all around is really beautiful, and I think it really speaks to Jac and Mary’s vision for the show and how well they’re able to communicate these ideas and bring this coven together.
Totally. Everything is firing on all cylinders. I love that sequence. Another one that really gets me is when Agatha breaks out of the spell in the morgue, and there’s this almost monster movie theme that comes in. It stands out to me every time I watch it. Can you talk a little bit about writing music for that sequence where she’s going through all the costumes, and then she turns around, and it’s almost this Frankenstein feel?
PARASKEVAS: That was very fun. That was actually the very first scene that I scored. The main melody that’s playing right there is a slowed-down version of the bass line from the song “Agatha All Along.” When she first comes to the morgue, up until that point, the score is very electronic, and she’s in that true crime world. That’s the first time we bring in the orchestra, and as she starts talking to Rio and she starts peeling back these layers, we’re teasing hints of the baseline. When she finally gets to the black-and-white moment in her full glory, she remembers who she is, and that’s when we hit it really hard and epic. It’s fun connecting it to WandaVision using the iconic song from the Lopezes and bringing all these moments together. I think that’s something that’s really powerful that music can do.
Speaking of bringing moments together, there’s so much going on at the end of Episode 8. We have the kiss, this epic battle, a tragic death. There’s so much that you’re trying to balance. How did you approach that with all of these vastly different things coming together?
PARASKEVAS: I think at the heart of it, it’s a very dramatic, character-driven story. We kind of tease that you’re expecting this big, VFX-heavy battle, and we get glimpses of that, but that’s not where the story is. And then, of course, we go on to Episode 9, and there’s so much more. I think that’s a really cool thing from Jac — that we’re giving you this thing, but we’re gonna go deeper. Our approach to that was [focusing on] the romance between Agatha and Rio and Billy’s own quest for identity. And then, even after the battle, when he goes back home, we pull the rug out again. I think it’s sort of leaning into those moments. And again, a lot of these moments, there’s no dialogue happening. The music’s kind of playing the subtext, and that’s something you relish as a composer. I enjoy doing those things.
I’m so curious, for this show, what was the most difficult theme or moment to crack, and then what came the easiest and most natural?
PARASKEVAS: I already kind of talked about Rio. One of my favorite cues is “Maiden Mother Crone,” the opening of Episode 9. That was one where we almost immediately got a blessing. I was like, “Let’s do something different. We’re opening the final episode, and it’s something completely fresh compared to what everyone’s seen before. It’s something unexpected.” It’s, again, another beautiful moment of filmmaking overall. What’s happening in the story is she’s giving birth, she’s panicking, she’s running, and we really found that witchy a cappella vocals worked magically right there. I love writing for choir and coming up with these intricate textures. That was another moment where there’s barely any dialogue, and music can lean into that moment. We did the first demo, and we were like, “It’ll sound better when we actually have real humans singing.” [Laughs] But that was a moment where Jac kind of trusted us to be like, “No, this is gonna be a special thing.”
You’ve worked on a few Marvel properties. What are the similarities and differences between being in the magical space with WandaVision and Agatha, and then the slightly more grounded and gritty side with Hawkeye?
PARASKEVAS: That’s what’s fun about Marvel — they have all these very iconic characters, and you keep all these things cohesive with very memorable themes and melodies and big, bold musical moments, but each one has its own flavor to it. I think, even from WandaVision to Agatha, it’s a completely different score. There are maybe certain moments that are similar, but you get to dive into different elements. And then Hawkeye was nowhere near the same. It has its own special, heisty Christmas in New York vibe. That’s the really fun part as a composer, getting to explore these different genres and finding ways to lean into them, but they’re all still part of this bigger vision that has all these really awesome characters. That’s what I really enjoy. Kate Bishop and Billy, I feel like both of them have this fun, spunky energy. Even though they’re very different and have different powers and backgrounds, there’s this youthful exuberance that I really enjoy.
Are there any Marvel characters you think would be particularly fun to compose for, whether they’re already in the MCU or not?
PARASKEVAS: That’s a good question. I’ve worked on a couple of the Young Avengers characters before. I almost feel like my career has kind of grown with the Marvel Universe. I sometimes identify with these younger characters — this younger generation. I think it’d be cool to explore some of those maybe lesser-known heroes and chart their journeys.
I think it only makes sense to put you on the Young Avengers project now since you have experience with multiple of them.
PARASKEVAS: We’ll manifest it.
Yes! Outside of Marvel, are there any genres that you haven’t gotten to work in that you would really like to sink your teeth into?
PARASKEVAS: So many. One thing I really like that got me into film scoring was the James Bond movies as a kid. You see how much music really elevates it and transports you to all of these different locations. Those vibes are really fun and bold. I love jazz and how you can fuse it into so many things in scoring. I love spy thrillers and stuff like that.
Well, they’re making another one of those, so we’ll manifest that, too. Michael Giacchino is obviously an incredible composer who has worked with Marvel as well. He recently stepped into directing with Werewolf by Night and did an amazing job. Would that ever be something that you would want to do? Is there something outside of composing in film and TV that you think would be fun to try?
PARASKEVAS: It’s funny you say that. I have thought about that before. I think, ultimately, no matter what department or field we work in, we’re storytellers at the end of the day. There are so many ways to tell stories, and everyone has a unique perspective and a unique journey that puts them on that path. I would love to explore directing and other mediums. I’m working on an album right now, away from film — producing, working with other musical artists, and working with dancers. Kaitlyn’s a filmmaker who’s making music videos and stuff, and so [I’m interested in] finding other ways to create and share stories that aren’t necessarily just film scoring. Especially in the world today with technology, there’s access to so many different tools and so much access to collaborating with people from all over the world.
Can you tease the album a little bit?
PARASKEVAS: It’s based on a short film that Kaitlyn made a couple of years ago called Pause/Play, which was a partnership with Dolby and Ghetto Film School. The album’s kind of inspired by this idea and centers around this video game aesthetic and universe. With the album, I wanted to lean into all these different genres that are connected — there’s some punk, there’s some hip-hop, there’s some neo soul. It’s just music that I enjoy and have always loved listening to that I haven’t necessarily gotten to do in film projects. I wanted to explore that, and there are all these artists whom I would love to collaborate with. I have a couple of tracks so far, and I’m really excited about where it’s going.
My final question is, I find myself getting rather emotional whenever I listen to the Agatha soundtrack. It really transports me back to the first time I watched it. Are there any scores that have that effect on you, where it hits you every time?
PARASKEVAS: I’d say one of my all-time favorite scores is probably The Shawshank Redemption by Thomas Newman. It’s one of those scores where it’s very emotional but in a very calculated way, where it doesn’t come across as cheesy or over-the-top. It feels very earned. I think his approach to scoring is really, really cool and evocative and interesting, especially the harmonies that he uses. That’s one where, whenever I feel stuck or just want to feel inspired, I always go back to that.
‘Agatha All Along’ is available to stream on Disney+ now.
— Taylor Gates