The powerful combination of composer Justin Hurwitz and film director Damien Chazelle was once again triumphant at Tuesday’s (Jan. 10) 2023 Golden Globes, where Hurwitz took home best original score for Chazelle’s Babylon.
This is hardly the duo’s first success story: Hurwitz is now four-for-four at the Globes working on Chazelle films exclusively, previously winning best original score and best original song (“City of Stars”) for La La Land in 2017 and best original score for First Man in 2019.
Hurwitz took his opportunity onstage at the Beverly Hilton to encourage the industry insiders in the room to “spread opportunity around,” so more creatives (young and old) have the opportunity to foster their talents.
“I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity how to figure out at a young age that music was the thing for me,” he said. “I’m grateful to my parents. I’m grateful to the public schools I went to that had music classes. I think a lot about all the people out there who are really talented at something but never get the chance to figure out what that thing is. So I just think it’s really important to spread opportunity around, to make sure that everybody — kids and adults and everybody — has the opportunity to be exposed to things, to try things out, to figure out what’s for them. … Things would be better if people could figure out the thing that they were good at, the thing they loved doing more than anything else, and we just need opportunity.”
The composer wrapped his speech by thanking “team Babylon” and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which awards the Golden Globes.
Hurwitz was up against Alexandre Desplat (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), Hildur Guðnadóttir (Women Talking), John Williams (The Fabelmans) and Carter Burwell (The Banshees of Inisherin) in the category. Williams remains tied with Dimitri Tiomkin and Maurice Jarre for the most wins in the history of the category.