Obi-Wan Kenobi composer Natalie Holt talks honoring John Williams while coming up with new themes and scoring for the "Obama-like" Organa family.

Warning: SPOILERS for Obi-Wan Kenobi ahead.

The long-awaited Disney+ Obi-Wan Kenobi show has reached its conclusion, and while there is no word yet of an Obi-Wan Kenobi season 2, the show has left audiences with much to discuss. Directed by Deborah Chow, Obi-Wan Kenobi delivered on a great many fronts, most notably in the way it reunited Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker (now known as Darth Vader). The show also introduced exciting new characters such as Moses Ingram's Reva, a layered character worthy of her own spin-off.

Just as Obi-Wan Kenobi had to explore new ground while honoring the stories it followed (and preceded), composer Natalie Holt was tasked with creating the show's musical identity while staying close to John Williams' original template. Holt, who also created the fantastic score for Marvel's Loki, had the responsibility of scoring one of the most anticipated character reunions in film and television history.

Related: Was Obi-Wan Kenobi's Darth Vader Rematch Worth The Wait?

Holt spoke with Screen Rant about stepping into the Star Wars universe, her creative process, and meeting John Williams.

Screen Rant: First off, you kind of made a career for yourself as a violinist before you started scoring. Is that right?

Natalie Holt: Yeah. I went to music college, and then went to university, and I went to film school. And when I came out, I just couldn't get any work as a film composer.  I went back to playing, but I always knew I wanted to be a composer. I was playing on sessions, and I played for lots of composers on various soundtracks as a viola player in that kind of six-year period before my composing career took off.

Screen Rant: How did you start getting your own scoring projects? Did you start with shorts and then move up?

Natalie Holt: I was playing in a quartet and doing films on the side, and keeping in touch with my directors who I worked with at film school. And then, through film school, I reached out to Martin Phipps. He scored The Crown and various other dramas. I met up with Martin Phipps and just said like, "If you need anyone to help you, making tea or anything, just give me a shout." I gave him a CD with my compositions on it, which were kind of string-heavy, and he had a project come up, it was Great Expectations, and that was our first project that I assisted him on.

I wrote a few character themes for him for that. That just kind of picked up, and then I was assisting Martin for a couple of years, and scored Wallander and Victoria. Woman in Gold, which was with Martin and Hans Zimmer. And then Paddington came along, that was another 'additional composer' job.

So yeah, just doing additional composing, orchestrating... I was orchestrating for a couple of composers as well. And then, finally, after The Honorable Woman with Martin Phipps, when we won an Ivor Novello award together - because we co-wrote that one - that was when my career started taking off on its own.

Screen Rant: When you found out you were scoring Obi-Wan Kenobi, did you do homework? How did you prepare for this?

Natalie Holt: During the lockdown, I've got a - she's just turned eight last weekend, but she was a seven-year-old during the lockdown. And we'd have a cinema night - or a couple of nights, if I'm honest - and we'd watch through Star Wars in order. We watched the prequels and then A New Hope, and... And so I'd just, even before I knew that I was going to do that [Obi-Wan Kenobi], I'd literally just watched the whole thing through with my daughter.

What was interesting was the prequels. I was slightly the wrong age for them when they came out, and then I think with the Jar Jar Binks character, I was kind of like, "Oh, I'm not sure. I think I'll stick with the original trilogy. I don't think I want to see those." I never even watched them. I watched the J.J. Abrams stuff, and Rogue One, and the Han Solo movie, but I hadn't seen them. So, it was really interesting to watch them with my daughter and appreciate them. Anakin Skywalker is her favorite character, because you see him from a little boy, pod racing. Annie just thought it was the coolest thing. It was great to also just be a fan of those as well.

And when you see George Lucas' vision for Star Wars, it was a family movie. It was a movie for kids. It makes more sense to have the Jar Jar Binks character, actually. And Annie just thought it was hilarious.

Screen Rant: You have these iconic characters who have been scored by John Williams before, but then you're scoring them when they're at a different place in their lives. How do you reconcile the music that came before with this new story that's being told? 

Natalie Holt: When I started up on this project, we weren't sure that we were going to be allowed to use the John Williams themes. Deborah [Chow] was saying to me, "I think we need to score the show as if we're not going to be able to use them." She was like, "I don't want to find out that we can't, so let's make it work without. Let's do our own thing." And she was saying, "Actually, if we were going to use the Vader theme, I don't think we should use it until episode six, because he's still half Anakin, half Vader at this point. When his mask cracks open at the end, and he says 'You didn't kill Anakin Skywalker. I did,' you realize now he's Vader, now he's earned his 'Imperial March'." Now when you hear it, it's so powerful. Deborah didn't want that theme playing every time you see Darth Vader, she wanted to explore his journey to get there.

And I did use the rhythm from "The Imperial March" underneath the sound design. I had a hunting horn, and slowed-down double bass, the low end of the orchestra playing this really gnarly, angry theme with these war sticks and stuff. Deborah wanted to have really visceral sense, when he's walking down the street kind of killing people, she's like "We've never really seen this side of Vader. He's in his prime. He's super angry, he's just full of rage." And actually, the Vader that we kind of see in A New Hope and onwards is much more measured, and we never see him lose control, or randomly kill people in such an evil way. He's more thoughtful and centered. So, yeah. That was a very deliberate decision.

John Williams watched the whole show, and he granted permission for his themes to be used in episode six and in certain places, and where the Yoda theme would go, and then that set the tentpoles for me. Like, "Okay, we can't use the themes until this point, so we need to be leading to them."

Screen Rant: You mentioned that episode six duel, which was obviously so anticipated and such a big deal. Even if you didn't know if you could use John Williams' themes, did you try to match his palette for moments like that, which were so tied to the prequel films? 

Natalie Holt: Yeah, for sure. I had Bill Ross as well, who is John Williams' longtime collaborator. Episode six was the handover episode, so that was Bill Ross, John Williams... that episode was a collaboration of the three of us. It was very much overseen by everyone there, just kind of making sure that it was hitting the right points. And with something like that, it's like John and Bill Ross have got over 40 years of Star Wars experience, so they know what Star Wars is and should be.

And for my job, it was just like "I just want to make sure that I'm walking the right line and striking the right balance between the old and the new, and doing what Deborah Chow is asking me to do, and what Kathleen is asking me to do," and yeah. Striking the right balance was definitely one of the challenges of the job. And I don't think you're ever going to please everyone, unless John Williams had come and scored the whole show. But he's 90, and I don't think that was in the cards. So we tried to do the best we could and be as respectful as possible to the original.

Screen Rant: I personally really love the music you wrote for Alderaan. It just feels so royal, obviously, but optimistic and gleeful. What's your process for creating these new tones for the Star Wars universe?

Natalie Holt: Every planet has its grounding in Earthly things. And we went about maybe having some South American flavors to Alderaan, because of the casting, and Jimmy Smits, so I did an experiment with some more rhythmic elements - which stuck in for the party scene, really quiet in the background. Deborah was kind of like, "It's like a really socialist country, green, modern, tech..." She felt like it was a very sleek but very ethical place. ?odern synths felt like they would work. And obviously they're a royal family, so we wanted to have some kind of gravitas but not be too pompous. Like, kind of everyman. She was like "It's sort of like the Obamas or something."

So, that was kind of the M.O. for Alderaan in the end. And it was a balance between orchestral and synths. And when the ship lands, and we first show the planet - it's like another character in the series. Like the planets are their own characters as well. Like Mapuzo, and Daiyu. Daiyu felt like it had lots of flavors from Hong Kong and the night markets, and bells, and Indonesian instruments. I was using some gamelan in there, and I used this 5/4 rhythm that just never lands, it's just constantly propelling forward. It's like Obi's being dragged through this - he doesn't really want to go.

Screen Rant: Did you feel like it was less pressure to write music for those new planets, and the things that we haven't seen before?

Natalie Holt: Yes, definitely. Well, Alderaan was tricky because it's in everyone's mind. It's this mythical place that Princess Leia comes from, and we know what happens to it, with the Death Star and everything. Daiyu, actually, was easier to score, I think because it wasn't part of the canon. [There were] so many levels. I'd compose something, and then Deborah would [sign off] on it, and it would go up to Kathleen, and everyone just wanted to be so careful that it was the right Star Wars. The right amount of Star Wars.

Screen Rant: Your score for Loki is wonderful, and goes so many places. When you're creating a whole new musical palette for something, where do you start? What kinds of ideas come into your head? Is it all character-based, or how much do you think about genre?

Natalie Holt: I think for Loki... When I read the script, for some reason, I was seeing the '70s, and A Clockwork Orange. Which is really strange, because I said that to them in the meeting, and they were kind of like "Oh!" Because that was their look, kind of '70s, analog, and those analog tape machines and stuff.

And then that influenced the way I was imagining the music, was like everything had this slightly faded quality to it. And I kind of had ages to process everything, and utilize old synths and record theremin, and then put everything through a tape machine. And I just kind of processed and played around a lot with the sound on Loki. It was really fun to do that. But it was really kind of a visual thing, and it was a bit more of a blank slate. Obviously, Marvel has scores for each thing, but it's not kind of the same as the Star Wars house style, in a way.

For every project, you have to have an open mind and bring something new to it, because you can't impose... if I tried to do a score like Loki for Star Wars, it would have been totally wrong, and the wrong tone. So for me, it's like telling the story, making sure what you're music is doing is supporting the drama, and not getting in the way, and adding what it should be adding. It's a constantly evolving process to find the right thing for each project. It's like a jigsaw puzzle.

More: Kenobi's Last Two Star Wars Cameos Have Deep Meanings For Obi-Wan & Vader

All episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi (and Loki) are streaming now on Disney+.

Owen Danoff is a features writer for Screen Rant, covering movies and TV shows he would be watching and taking about anyway. Owen has been an avid consumer of science fiction and fantasy books, films, television shows, and video games for most of his life, and credits them for his love of storytelling and writing in general. Personal favorites include Star Wars movies, Brandon Sanderson books, and the Mass Effect games. Owen is also a songwriter and musician with a history of releasing his own music as well as collaborating with other artists. When not writing, Owen is usually thinking about writing, or playing Apex Legends.