With director Jaume Collet-Serra’s Run All Night hitting theaters this weekend, a few days ago I visited composer Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg) in his Encino studio for an in-depth conversation. As you’ll hear him explain, he went from having a number 1 single around the world (his remix of Elvis Presley’s 1968 single “A Little Less Conversation”) to working as an assistant to learning what it takes to compose music for movies. He didn’t make some immediate jump overnight. He paid his dues, and now he’s working on some of the biggest films around. Over the past few years he’s done great work on 300: Rise of an Empire, Divergent, and collaborated with Hans Zimmer at Remote Control Productions on Megamind, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Man of Steel.

During our extended video interview, he talks about how he made the transition to composing, why he decided to write a more emotional score for Run All Night, his fondness for Frank Miller and Sin City, future projects like George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (he’s writing the music for Batman), the Point Break remake, what advice he would give to someone trying to break into the industry, and so much more. If you want to know how to make it as a composer in Hollywood, you’re going to want to watch this.

Here’s the interview followed by a time index to provide an overview of the conversation. You can also purchase the Run All Night soundtrack on iTunes now.

00:15: Talks about where he is geographically and his current studio setup

02:10: Discusses when he began to work in the film industry and what inspired him to do so

03:05: How he discovered that one of his tracks was used in Blade during the opening club scene

04:10: Talks about how he decided to break into the industry and working as an assistant

05:14: His big break on the film Catwoman

05:58: Turned down an offer from Remote Control Productions [Hans Zimmer’s music production company]

06:12: Discusses his work on Inception with Christopher Nolan

06:45: Begins listing other studio films he worked on such as Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

07:02: Reveals when he decided to work for Remote Control Productions

07:42: Discusses what led him to work on Mad Max: Fury Road and Run All Night

08:15: Talks about what advice he would give to himself as an 18-year-old

08:43: “Music should talk for itself”

09:35: Discusses a creative strategy he employed as a 16-year-old to get journalists to listen to his music

10:28: Describes his work process and the major disadvantage of watching the film before you start composing its music

11:32: How he gets into the mind of a character while reading a script, and writing a theme for this character

13:05: Describes writing the score for 300: Rise Of An Empire with the help of Zack Snyder

13:45: Reveals Zack Snyder’s one note regarding the score

14:36: What times during the day is he most productive and creative when composing?

16:19: Discusses being approached to write the score for Run All Night

17:10: Researching other films with mob bosses and hit men, including The Godfather, and the main difference between the scores of mob films in the 70s and those of the 80s

19:05: Explains why he decided to write a more emotional score for Run All Night

20:05: Which comic books he grew up with, and which he was not allowed to read

20:45: Discusses his fondness for Frank Miller and Sin City

21:08: Talks about how much it meant to him to work with Hans Zimmer on the score for Man of Steel, says that he would work on those films for free

22:25: “All of these characters [Batman, Superman, etc.] are bigger than all of the directors and actors that ever dealt with them.”

23:20: Every fan of comic books has a different vision of what the film version should look like.

25:30: What it felt like to have Hans Zimmer ask him to work on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

26:20: Discusses when he became involved with Mad Max: Fury Road, and the trip he took to Sydney to meet George Miller

28:12: The first cut of the second act of Mad Max was three hours long, and how it was filmed with very little CGI

29:25: Describes his first conversation with George Miller, and the role that math plays in music and editing

31:05: Describes how long the scenes are in Mad Max and how he wrote music for them

32:10: Whether an extended and uncut version of the film will be released

33:10: Discusses whether he still has work to do on Mad Max

33:45: Whether there is a plan to release all of the music he composed for the film

34:15: The plan to release the Run All Night score and the bonus features that come with it

36:05: What hopes he has for the record industry in the future

37:35: Reveals that he will be composing the score for the remake of Point Break

38:25: Describes why he doesn’t like to discuss projects that are more than a year away from being released

39:05: The differences between his work techniques and those of fellow composer Alexander Desplat

40:10: He and Hans Zimmer spent five months just producing music for Man Of Steel before actually writing the score

40:40: How many movies he feels comfortable composing in a year

41:30: What factors can influence the speed at which he composes

43:25: Is working on several projects right now, but cannot discuss them

43:48: Advice he has for musicians wanting to become composers in the film industry