Clint Mansell on Black Swan

We caught up with Clint Mansell, composer of the soundtrack for the film that's been nominated in 12 BAFTA categories.

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan is a psychological thriller that tells of an obsessive ballet dancer who strives for perfection to the detriment of her physical and mental heath. Mansell has worked with Aronofsky several times before, but was this time more daunting, given that he had to fit his own music around Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake?

"I didn't feel any pressure really… I think to a degree you've got to start off brutally so you don't end up just polishing it (Tchaikovsky’s original music). You want to achieve something with it, but something in keeping with the original work. So that if someday it crossed Tchaikovsky's path he'd say `yeah, those guys did something good with that'."

Mansell's beginnings in music were in a pop band, but film has always had a special place in his life and he credits it with giving him an interest in classical music.

"I grew up watching a lot of films with my dad at home, and I was always affected by film music, which can bring you into contact with a lot of genres of music. It was how I first heard Pachelbel's Canon which when you are 13 or 14 you think, oh hell what's this?"

Listen to the full interview now