Marvel's What If...? is a big, bold, and ambitious show in just about every way, and that includes its score. Each episode is a half-hour trip to a new alternate universe, each focusing on a different set of characters, a different setting, and a different story. Music really helps tell the story, with the What If...? score ranging from 1940's era big band music, to tense spy thriller, to sweeping orchestral symphony. It requires someone nimble and deft with a number of genres, and Marvel found exactly that in composer Laura Karpman.

Screen Rant sat down with Karpman to discuss the challenge of spanning everything from war music to the sound of a bar in outer space, the tragedy of Doctor Strange, crafting a musical tribute for Chadwick Boseman, and more.

This is one of the most ambitious Marvel projects, and people really seem to be enjoying it. But one thing people don't think about is that each episode tells a different story, and then you have to animate different characters for each episode, but the score for each one also has to be drastically different depending on the story that's being told. How challenging was it to have to do such distinct styles of everything?

Laura Karpman: I think that's why I was hired. I think I was hired because I'm good at that, so it's not unbelievably hard for me to say, "Oh, we're doing zombies. Oh, we're doing a heist. Oh, we're doing this."

I've had a long and really varied career, so when stuff like that comes up, it's almost like putting on a different outfit or something. It's like, "Today, I'm gonna wear purple linen. Tomorrow, I'm gonna wear a tux." It's fun, and it's what keeps it lively.

Do you find that there's more of a challenge to score a half-hour episode? Because there's so much you want to do, but you really have to be precise with picking the right sound for the moment.

Laura Karpman: What's weird - and I don't really know why - was that it didn't feel like a half hour. There's so much jam-packed in every episode, and it's wall-to-wall music. So, it didn't feel like, "Oh my God, I wish I'd gotten the chance to do that."

I suppose that if it were longer, we might have had longer stretches and montages and things like that. But in Episode 4, we did. Where was a five-minute massive montage. The thing about What If...? is that if you don't get it in one episode, just wait for the next one, and you'll get the opportunity to do it.

I know they're their own things, but it in some ways, they kind of fit together like a puzzle. I think - in a way that's not necessarily from a story standpoint, but from a musical standpoint - they kind of did.

It's kind of a musical complement to the fact that all of the Marvel movies look different, but they still feel like they fit into the same universe.

Laura Karpman: Right, I think that's true. I think there's a feel and a look and a general sound that is orchestral. Their movies are big movies, and I think that's what we did. We made our own big movies in little packages.

So far, Episode 4 is my favorite. The music at the end is heartbreaking and beautiful. Did you have an episode that was your favorite to score?

Laura Karpman: No. There were things about every episode that I loved, and I love your question about, "Were you feeling like you couldn't do enough." And that's what's interesting. Episode 4 was long stretches, so I really got to explore this one kernel of an idea. What is this love relationship, and how can it be small and intimate? And then how can it grow big and tragic? And I had a lot of sonic space to do that in.

Episode 1, I had to be like "Boom, boom, boom." It wasn't like that; there weren't long stretches. This happened, then that happened, and then this person shows up, and then so-and-so appears and you're in a fight sequence. It was much more of switching back and forth between a lot of different things: then you're in a bar and it's 40s music, and now we're back to the war movie and there's Hydra and there's that.

Then in 2, there was just a lot of stuff going on. We had the whole Guardians of the Galaxy thing, we had Wakanda, we had this cool bar where I created the music; we had a heist movie sitting in the middle of it. So, all of those things interest me. I love 4, and I also really liked the music for Episode 3, I have to say. I liked writing that massive murder mystery music. We call it the "mystery assassin theme."

You've mentioned Episode 4, which was something that we don't really expect from a Doctor Strange story, because his powers are so great that you always expect a big spectacle with him. But it really was much more of an intimate love story about grief, and a man that is just not able to accept the fact that somebody he loves us is gone. The music was really nice complement to that.

Laura Karpman: And no matter how much power he amasses, you can't really change that reality.

Did you find that you had to readjust your thinking for Doctor Strange when you were scoring episode 4 to fit the tone better?

Laura Karpman: I think that on that one, it wasn't so much about Doctor Strange, but more about telling this particular story. So, it wasn't about what you think of when you think of the films - we used the harpsichord, so that that takes you [away] - but it was much more about process and he was trying to capture something that he could not capture.

I think good film scoring and good storytelling does that. It doesn't matter what you think it should be; it's about what it's about. And you have to have clarity in that in your vision for the project.

When you were getting involved in the process, does it work very differently than live-action? Do you come into the process much earlier than live-action with animation?

Laura Karpman: I don't think so. We started talking about it early - maybe even too early - but we really started working on it in earnest about a year ago. So, it wasn't crazy early, and I had stuff to look at.

For me, it didn't feel like a different thing. It was about story; it was about character. That's what movies are. That's how you score a movie, that's how you score TV show, that's how you score a documentary. That's how you create an opera. You have to dissect the drama, you've got to figure out what it needs; what music can do that you're not getting - or not even not getting, but what music can do to augment what you are getting, would be the better way to say that. And that's what each of these episodes required.

Did you find that it was ever hard for you to get in and find that hook to understand what music scene or character required?

Laura Karpman: That's a really good question too. I will say that in Episode 1, there were some tonal things. I remember one scene, in particular, when Peggy is training and doing these initial fights. My first take on it was more of an action sequence, and the showrunner said, "No, she should be having fun." So it's like, "Okay, I see what you mean." Sometimes you'll come at something, where you interpret the scene tonally differently.

But I have to say, once we got going, that really did not happen that much. It was mostly things that I might miss; little things that came into view as the animation got more and more done. Certain things when you're working early on, you literally don't quite see it. "Oh, this is gonna really look like this one." "Oh, okay. Great." And then you see it and say, "Oh, yeah, okay, I get it."

There is that to animation, and I think that is a little bit different from doing live-action. Because in live-action, you see what you see, and obviously it gets better. The edit changes color, timing, and all those things happen. But sometimes in animation, you just literally don't see the minutiae of what you need to do.

Was there any time that, once you saw the animation, you realized this score or piece of music wasn't going to work?

Laura Karpman: No, but there were things where I saw, "Oh God, I've got to add this. Oh, I need to hit that," or "Okay, I get it. Let me do this here. Let me catch that." It was more adding a layer of something that was there. Because I think the basis of what I was doing was there, and of course everything was approved and looked at by the editors, the showrunners, and Kevin and everybody at Marvel. People had weighed in on stuff: what was working, what wasn't, and I was fine-tuning in any case.

If you've gotten to see the show yet, is there an episode that's your favorite?

Laura Karpman: No, I can't say there is. I would say there are sections of every episode that I love. I loved doing the heist music, I loved doing the bar music in 2. I loved building the very, very end of 4 was really amazing. Building that tribute for Chadwick was very touching and hard and meaningful. I love the mystery assassin theme in Episode 3. I think it's really fun and kind of modernist and different and weird.

Every episode has something in it where I say, "Oh!" And it's funny, because for the soundtrack, I've been asked to pick out the iconic cue - what I think the cue is for the episode. So I've been thinking about that. I'll pick one cue, and I'll say, "No, this is the one. This is the one that's really my best work in this particular episode."

Next: Composer Natalie Holt Interview: Loki

Marvel's What If...? releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.