Siddhartha Khosla discusses Looking for Alaska, teenage heartbreak, and the power of silence

Emmy-nominated composer Siddhartha Khosla scored Hulu’s Looking for Alaska adaption, once again showcasing his knack for making everyone weep.

Siddhartha Khosla loves telling stories. While some do so through books, others through scripts, and others by performing in front of cameras, this man showcases his talent through music.

“Is this still a good time to talk?” I ask him after we talk casually for a few minutes, scanning my notes one more time before we begin. I am not just a fan of John Green and his books; I am also a fan of music in general — but especially of scores, and particularly, Siddhartha Khosla’s scores of late.

I listened to the Looking for Alaska soundtrack as I wrote the questions I planned on asking him. I’ve chosen my queries carefully. This story is complex, as, I imagined, was the process of creating it. To unpack that complexity, I knew, I was going to have to dig deep. Some might call it research. I call it a convenient obsession.

“Of course,” he says. “I’m just working on some music. But I’m always happy to talk.”

I tell him that doesn’t surprise me. Because it doesn’t. When you’re an award-winning composer whose scores have captured millions of hearts — and triggered many more tears — chances are you sit down to make music every chance you get. It’s what you’re good at. It’s why people hire you to score Hulu series based on award-winning books.

Technically speaking, Looking for Alaska’s screen adaption has been in development for many years. After obtaining the rights from John Green (whose novel the series is adapted from), Josh Schwartz tried and failed more than once to turn the story into a movie. And then, in 2019, it became a TV show — an eight-episode series that separates the book into parts and adapts it almost flawlessly.

But every show needs music. That’s where Siddhartha Khosla comes in.

The partnership between Khosla and Josh Schwartz began when Schwartz licensed several songs for The O.C. — songs by Khosla’s band, Goldspot.

Years later, Khosla was presented with the opportunity to score a highly anticipated Hulu series — the first, but not the last, involving the duo that would go on to create the Hulu adaption of John Green’s debut novel.

“Josh [Schwartz] and his producing partner, Stephanie Savage, and I started working together a couple years ago on Runaways,” Khosla explained. “And that kind of developed into this really wonderful relationship. They have such a unique voice and know how to connect to the audiences in a special way.”

Khosla has been lucky enough to work with many brilliant show creators and showrunners over the years, including Dan Fogelman of This Is Us fame. If you’re a fan of Khosla’s score, you can still hear it on NBC’s massively successful drama, which just so happened to earn the composer his first-ever Emmy nomination earlier this year.

When Schwartz sent Khosla the initial Looking for Alaska pilot script, the first notes that would become the main theme of the series presented themselves to the composer almost immediately.

“Josh sent me his script, and as I was reading it, I kind of came up with this ‘Great Perhaps’ theme,” he said. “And I was just kind of noodling along on the piano as I was reading. I’d get through 15, 20 pages of the script and then stop and then go to my piano and have my iPhone on, and I just had it recording. So that process was, a couple hours reading the script and going back and forth between my piano and the page, and I started hearing this kind of theme in my head.”

The same way stories sometimes change as they are being written, filmed, or edited, the process of scoring a series like Looking for Alaska also requires a willingness to adapt. It took seeing the initial version of the pilot episode for Khosla to truly begin to understand what his score should sound like.

“Picture informs the music and the instrumentation in a very interesting way because, all of a sudden, when I got the pilot episode, I realized there was a whole different level of sensitivity to the way that it was shot and acted that I was not anticipating,” he explained. “And conversations were quiet. I noticed that there was a quiet about the show that I really loved. It was patient. So the score was really sensitive and patient. It sits for a while, it soaks in the dialogue a little bit. So, my sound changed as I saw picture. The score became quieter, it became more under the skin than I initially imagined.”

And he had to draw on his own experiences to create a score that would convey the sensitive, patient, and heartbreaking reality of such an emotional story.

“I wanted the score to feel like what I remember it used to feel like as a teenager,” he relayed. “And I remember when I was a teenager, every emotion I experienced was always really heightened, you know? Like when I fell in love, it felt like the greatest feeling in the world, and when that didn’t work out, that heartbreak felt like the worst feeling in the world. So, I wanted the score to feel very internal.”

The process for creating a score for a limited series such as this is much different than scoring a multi-season show like This Is Us. Whereas each individual episode of This Is Us will have its own theme, Alaska had the same larger theme spread throughout the whole thing.

But it’s the recurring presence of that theme that helps audiences connect with Alaska and her friends and their respective stories.

“What Josh and Stephanie created here was a story in eight parts. It kind of made sense to weave just a couple themes through the whole series. Also there’s a familiarity. You start hearing this similar motion as you’re watching it too. Because, in the score, I’m going back to something and hinting at it, it almost becomes more immersive.”

Knowing I should let him get back to making music (he’s very good at that, in case you weren’t aware), I tell him there’s one thing I wanted to make sure I brought up before we parted ways. And so I ask Siddhartha Khosla, renowned composer, brilliant songwriter, a man whom I can sense even from afar doesn’t just make music, but is somehow fueled, fascinated, and touched by it, to talk about the absence of music.

At a critical moment in Looking for Alaska — a turning point in the story that sets the tone for the remainder of the series — there is no music. For the first several minutes of the second-to-last episode, “Now Comes the Mystery,” the score that usually fills the background of a scene is nowhere to be found.

This was, of course, intentional. But it was also powerful — especially when the music finally did return. Even Khosla wasn’t immune to its effect.

“Our editor Matt Ramsey on that episode did such a beautiful [job] … like I remember seeing an early cut of that episode, and there was no music for that first couple minutes in. And it made the anticipation that much greater, and it sucked you in. Like I felt like I held my breath because of that decision.”

That decision — called spotting — is the process of determining where music does (and does not) end up in a scene.

“We sit there and we determine when we want music or what we want it to feel like, what the emotional quality of it is going to be. I think the decision of when to use music is as important as the music you put in for that very reason.”

Not surprisingly, Khosla seems appreciative of the attention to music here, or lack thereof. As a film and television composer, he is often asked how he came to create music, how his music tells a story, and why he makes the choices he does when he’s writing it. But music isn’t just the notes. It’s the whole score. It’s where it starts and ends. It’s how it brings a story together, how it draws a viewer in — how it makes them feel.

“Most people ask about the music,” he said. “They don’t ask about the silence.”

There is a reason music has a specific notation to indicate when no music should be played. It’s called a “rest” for a reason. Silence builds tension, it creates anticipation. But it also sings volumes. It is often in our moments of quiet when we are most present in our respective worlds. And when that quiet ends, we almost have no choice but to pay attention to the noise.

“When you’re remembering people that are no longer with you and there’s a moment of silence, I think in that silence there’s something very powerful that happens. It’s an incredibly powerful and immersive experience to live in that moment with all those characters. Then when the music does come in, it hits you even harder. There’s a moment when the music does come in, I have this piano melody, when The Eagle starts to talk. And that’s when it really hits you, because it feels earned.”

What stands out to Khosla most about the story — the message that helped to bring his score to life, which in turn enhances the story that plays out before our eyes — is the essential reminder that all people deserve the chance to be understood.

“It just reminds you that human emotions are fragile, and human beings are fragile. I think a show like this, and the way Josh and Stephanie told the story, the thing that you can grab from it is how important it is to have empathy for others and to know that everyone has a story, and somebody could be in pain and you don’t know it. It’s most important to treat people with empathy because you don’t know what they’re going through.”

Perhaps this is why Khosla’s score accompanying this series is so powerful. You feel the fragility in it. You feel the pain. But you also feel the hope. The promise that life goes on, and that there is purpose in it, and beauty, and love.

Chances are, Khosla would recommend the series even if he hadn’t been largely responsible for making it the masterpiece it has become.

“I think this is a show that appeals to such a wide audience. It appeals to teenagers, it appeals to adults, such a wide demographic of people, and it’s so artfully done. I think that if you’re looking for brilliant indie filmmaking in a television show today, [this is] one that ‘has it’ to me. There’s lots of wonderful stuff out there, but to me, this feels like a Sundance-winning movie in eight parts. And that’s what made this experience so much fun for me. This was such an artistic exercise for all of us. It’s such a beautifully, thoughtfully done series.”

There are dozens of ways to tell a story. Through a book, through a TV series, through music, through silence. It turns out when all these things come together, and play their respective roles in creating something so many can relate to, what results truly is something truly unforgettable.

You can stream all of Looking for Alaska on Hulu now.