Netflix - Christopher Lennertz on Back in Action: Scoring Thrills, Espionage, and Family Bonds

By Mulder, Los Angeles , 31 january 0001 to 31 january 2025

Back in Action, the latest action-comedy from director Seth Gordon, marks the long-awaited return of Cameron Diaz, alongside a cast that includes Jamie Foxx, Glenn Close and Andrew Scott. Released on Netflix on January 17, 2025, the film tells a story of espionage, betrayal and family dynamics. Matt and Emily, two former CIA agents played by Jaimie Foxx and Cameron Diaz, embark on a perilous quest to recover a high-level device capable of controlling electronic systems. From frantic chases through London's Tate Modern to tense family revelations in the isolated mansion of an MI6 sniper, the film attempts to combine thrilling action with heartfelt moments. Accompanied by a dynamic score by composer Christopher Lennertz, whose work infuses energy into the film's most intense and moving sequences, Back in Action reminds us of the power of music to elevate even the most conventional cinematic experiences. In the interview that follows, Christopher Lennertz gives us an insight into his creative process, the challenges of composing such a fast-paced narrative, and how he brought a distinct musical identity to this high-profile project.

Q: How were you approached to compose the music for Back in Action ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, I was lucky on this one because I had done the last three movies that Seth Gordon had directed, including Horrible Bosses and Identity Thief, so we had worked together quite a bit. He called me and said he wanted me to score it and sent me the script, which I read before he even started shooting. I just thought it was fantastic—really fun and clever. It had a lot of the humor that a James Bond movie would have but also all these great action set pieces and sequences. So, I told him I was in right away, of course, and I was really excited to do it. I was thrilled.

Q: What was your starting point for imagining the musical identity of this film ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, the big thing for me was that we had quite a bit of time because Jamie had his, you know, his health scare and his big issue at the end of the first part of filming. We had to sort of wait and give him time to get healthy again after the small stroke he had. So Seth and I had time to really go in, and they had just taken all the footage. It wasn’t even the whole movie yet because they were still missing some scenes, but there was still a lot of this movie that they had put together in a very rough form.

Seth and I played around for a long time with, you know, what is this? What’s the identity of this score? What do we need it to do? One of the things we knew was that it was going to be a big score with a full orchestra and a lot of electronics because there were a lot of tech aspects—like the fact that they’re searching for this hard drive, it’s modern-day, and there’s all kinds of espionage. But we also knew that, because we were going to be in Europe and there was a lot of, you know, obviously close, very savvy, intelligence-based storytelling—we wanted the music to feel cerebral on top of the muscle and the visceral aspects.

So we decided early on that we wanted to have elements of classical mixed with muscle. We did this by working a lot with motifs of multiple notes that repeat, and then I would change their meters so that sometimes they would line up and sometimes they wouldn’t—almost the way a minimalist composer like Steve Reich would do. We developed this early on, and Seth really gravitated toward it. He said he loved it because it felt like they were getting bits and pieces of information bit by bit—sometimes things would line up and they’d have a clue, and other times they’d be like, I don’t know what’s going on. That felt really good to him.

He also felt that this approach represented the two main characters—Jamie and Cameron—working as a team, like a one-two punch. When they locked in, they were at their best. Then, over or underneath that, we could layer big, long brass lines, deep basses, cellos, and huge percussion. This gave us all the gravity of something massive—where huge cities like London and Paris could be at risk if things weren’t done right. It was a way to be small and intimate for them and their family but also big and expansive for the larger story.

Then, early on, Seth came in with a bunch of examples that he really loved of solo cello. I said, Well, instead of just solo cello—because we have two main characters—what if we use two cellos? One on the left and one on the right. So we got two cello soloists—two really good friends of mine who have played for me a lot, Cameron Stone and Ro Rowan. They played basically each character, positioned left and right in the speakers.

We also brought in some vocal soloists—not only to sing the melodic content of the score in key moments but also to do a lot of vocal percussion. Wayan, who was on The Voice, and Crystal Simmons, who was actually in Rogers: The Musical (which I wrote), came in and did a lot of percussion using their mouths and bodies. I felt like this made the sound feel human on a subconscious level. It gave the action score a quality that kids might find cool—something they’d connect with. It also added warmth and a family undertone, which was really important to both Seth and me. We both have kids, and that was a big part of this movie—making sure that, no matter what they were doing, yeah, they were saving the world, but really, they were just trying to take care of their family. That was the most important point. That was why they had these amazing skills and the ability to ultimately win at the end of the day.

Q: The film is rhythmic and intense. What challenges did you face in composing a soundtrack that would support this energy ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, definitely! I mean, it was fun because, you know, the last three films that Seth and I have done together had moments of action, but they were mostly comedies. So, to finally get a movie where Seth and Cy Redway said, "We're going to pretty much write this score with no comedy. It's going to be action for the most part, and we're going to let the source music handle any of the comedic elements," was really exciting.

He wanted it to feel really intense and huge, like the stakes were big. So, I knew we would have to do a lot of action music. I knew we would, like I said, be able to incorporate some of these classical elements, but I also wanted there to be giant percussion, lots of synths, stutters, and things like that—because you had hard drives, secret codes, and special devices, all of which feel very modern. I wanted that to be a key part of the score.

When I started playing stuff for Seth early on, he loved these repeated figures that would go really fast on top of each other, going back and forth with big percussion. So, I knew that was going to be the cornerstone of the score.

The other thing I really wanted was for it to feel off-kilter. A lot of the action music has different meters—sometimes it's in seven, sometimes in three, sometimes in five—and it shifts back and forth a lot. Quite honestly, that’s because I miss that kind of action music! That's what made me fall in love with film scoring. I miss Jerry Goldsmith, I miss Basil Poledouris—that’s what I wanted to do. So, I aimed for a modern take on it—what if you mixed James Bond with the best of Basil, the best of Jerry, and that late '70s, '80s, '90s action movie era, but with modern synths?

I also wanted those off-kilter, jagged tempo and meter changes. And I think that’s what I really accomplished. Thankfully, Seth thought it was a lot of fun because, you know, a lot of action scores tend to still be in four nowadays. They often use big percussion only as part of the intensity. But Seth wanted it to feel faster—he wanted it to feel really fast and unpredictable, with twists and turns just like the plot. Hopefully, we were successful in achieving that.

Q: Can you tell us about a key scene in the film where music plays a crucial role ?

Christopher Lennertz: I think, hopefully, in a lot of places, but the thing that I think Seth gravitated toward right away was in a couple of the tracks that you probably heard. One of them is called Hell of a Call. It happens at the end of a track called The Bakers 2, where you hear this repeated set of notes, and you hear it going over multiple instruments. They don't always play it at the same time. Sometimes they lock in and make sense, sometimes they don’t. One is in the left ear, one is in the right. Sometimes it's high, sometimes it's low.

The thing that Seth gravitated toward was making sure the audience realized that Cameron and Jamie were a team, and the only way they were going to be able to save their family and save the world was if they worked together as a team. So, as these cogs are moving and things are falling into place, these motifs—these sets of notes—start working together more and more, getting faster and faster as the movie progresses. He said it made him feel like Cameron and Jamie were working together more, just like the music was.

By the time they get to these final few chase scenes, they are a team, and then their family becomes a team. That’s how they’re able to foil the problem at the end, succeed, and save everything. I thought that idea was reflected specifically in the track Hell of a Call, where it really starts to come out. That’s also where the family tells the kids that they were spies, explaining how everything was connected to this big, evil plan. I think that’s the moment where everything starts to unfold, and the movie really picks up momentum, hopefully keeping everyone on the edge of their seats.

Q: What techniques or instruments did you use to give the soundtrack a distinct tone ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, this one was really important too. Early on, the two-cello approach was definitely something that Seth jumped on right away—he loved the sound of the cello, and so did I. I knew exactly which two people I wanted to hire, so we had them do it. The same thing happened with the vocals.

But we also used a lot of really interesting techniques in terms of our percussion tracks. There are whole percussion tracks literally made up of sounds like cocking a gun, shell casings hitting the ground, and being ejected from the gun. My daughter and I even went on top of a bridge and sampled ourselves hitting different wires on the bridge because there’s a big cycle chase later on where they go across the bridge, and we wanted to incorporate that sound. We used those samples within the body of the score as rhythmic elements.

We also experimented with instruments like the hurdy-gurdy and dulcimers from Eastern Europe and the Baltic region, where some of our villains are from. We combined those with sampled percussion. There’s even a scene early in the film when they steal the drive from Gore’s house and pull it out of a big wooden desk. We actually sampled wood—recording the sound of drawers sliding in and out—so when you hear some of these tracks, the drawer slides feel like percussion. You hear the drawer move, and that becomes part of the rhythm.

We tried to incorporate all of these sounds as we went along to create something unique—hopefully, something people haven’t heard before. Not in a way that’s distracting, but in a way that makes it feel like a modern take on a classic spy espionage movie. At the same time, these elements don’t just feel like synthesizers; they feel more organic, more connected to the story. Hopefully, they work subconsciously because they’re derived from actual objects and moments seen on screen, and we turned those into percussion.

Q: How long did you have to compose the entire soundtrack ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, I would say from start to finish, it was probably—you know—once we had a bunch of time to do, as I was saying, the themes and the motifs specifically, because we had extra time since Jamie had his stroke. But once Jamie came back and finished, we had about three months to do the rest of the soundtrack, to really take those themes, finish them, orchestrate, and go record. So, it was about three and a half months from when Jamie came back to that.

Q: At what stage of the production are you brought in to score the film ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, I was brought on early because I'm friends with Seth, and he trusted me and wanted me to do the score. So, he sent me the script early on, and I was already starting to think about it while he was shooting. Then, once I started seeing some footage, I was really wrapping my head around it, trying to figure out what the music could be. So, I was brought on earlier than I often am, and I was glad to have some of that extra time. Sometimes it's so rushed. But really, you know, like I said, beyond the themes, I sort of waited until we had a good solid rough cut to start writing things for specific scenes.

Q: What do you think of the evolution of digital tools in music composition today ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, I mean, obviously, I think it's important, and I've always tried to use any sort of digital creation, digital tools—whether it be using samples of things or creating my own sounds by recording things that aren't musical and making them into music. I tend to try to do that when it can achieve something that a real musical instrument can't do.

So, if I want to use French horns—if that's the right choice for, say, a big action scene—okay, I want the French horns to play the melody because it's warm, heroic, victorious, thick, and powerful. So that's what I'm going to use—real French horns.

But then, when they're looking at the screen earlier in the movie, trying to figure out how to find the kid, and they notice he's wearing that ring with the GPS locator on it, and all these little things are appearing on the computer screens—that's a situation where I'm like, "Wait a second. We've got all this technology and all these non-human, computerized elements going on." So, I'm going to use the technology I have to create music that reflects that.

Sometimes, it's using actual synthetic sounds, but sometimes, it's also taking organic sounds—whether it's vocals, percussion made with the mouth, or even something like a guitar—and using technology to modify it. That could mean slowing it down, chopping it up, or turning it backward. One of the things you'll hear all over the score is lots of backward guitar, and I thought that was really fun because, to me, it evokes SPN in a way.

The leads—our heroes—are always trying to figure out what the bad guys are doing. One of the things I feel represents that well is when you hear something played in reverse. It takes the attack that was originally at the beginning of the sound and flips it so the decay starts first, building up to the attack. To me, subconsciously, that’s very synonymous with someone piecing together a clue. If you're a spy and you go, "Oh, wait, that's it! Now I know!"—to me, that kind of backward movement leading into an impact is very symbolic of the brain figuring something out.

I thought that was really useful, and as I progressed further into the score, I think we incorporated it even more and more as the pacing of the movie intensified.

Q: How does your approach differ when composing for a film like Back in Action versus a series like The Boys ?

Christopher Lennertz: Well, I mean, it's funny— in some ways, it doesn't differ at all because, you know, scary is scary, and tension is tension, and that is true. But that said, I would say, you know, The Boys is very subversive and very raw. And, you know, they're not dealing with billions of dollars and fancy Rolls-Royces and Aston Martins and the highest technology. In The Boys, you've got superheroes with just visceral powers, and they're fighting, or, you know, the superheroes are fighting the actual boys, who have no technology and no superpowers. They're just gritty—it's all about dirt and grime and grittiness. So it's very unpolished.

Whereas a score like Back in Action, because these two spies are two of the best spies that have ever lived, and they're also in this espionage world where you're dealing with MI6 and the highest amounts of money, is very polished. Everything in the score is supposed to be precise and polished, and the way things interact and switch back and forth is very clean and precise.

I mean, there's definitely distortion, and there's definitely aggressiveness in the show because there's a lot of fighting and a lot of chases and things like that. But compared to The Boys, it's like one is a perfectly painted, high-resolution painting—not perfect because it just is, but perfect because it was very meticulously crafted. Whereas The Boys is sloppy, it's angry, it's desperate, it's sweaty and dirty, and that's really what it's all about.

So, for example, the cellos in Back in Action are right on the beat and in tune, whereas the violins when Homelander’s mind is going crazy are not on the beat, not in tempo—they speed up and slow down, completely going in and out of tune. Some of the notes are in tune, and some get really out of tune, bending all over the place.

So it's almost the same initial concept but the opposite execution of that concept, which I think is actually really cool. This is the first time I've really thought about it until you just brought it up, so thank you! But that's exactly what happened.

Q: Does the series format give you more or less creative freedom than a film ?

Christopher Lennertz: The one thing I would say is that I think there may be more creative freedom in The Boys when it comes to the types of sounds and the kind of things that are out of tune that get away with it because the characters are so off, unexpected, and weird. So there’s that. But then there’s also a freedom in something like Back in Action because even though you can't be as out of tune and you don’t want to be as sloppy, I felt like I could put my own spin on a genre that people are familiar with. And that was interesting to me because I had never gotten a chance to do that.

You know, as I told Seth, I mean, because I'm an American composer, I probably am not going to get hired to do the next James Bond movie, even though I would love to. So this was kind of my—I've done the video games, thank goodness, which is fun, but I would love to do a James Bond movie, and this was my opportunity. I think, if I get to play in that sandbox, how am I able to bring my own little style to a modern-day espionage movie? And so I actually felt a lot of freedom in that as well, and I had a lot of fun writing it because of that.

Q: Is there a particular moment in your career when you felt you had found your musical signature ?

Christopher Lennertz: There are probably a few of them—quite a few. I would say the first time I felt like I did something that was really very much what I would consider to be what I do if I had no constraints would be Medal of Honor: European Assault. My main theme for that, which we called Dogs of War, was a moment when they basically said, "Do whatever you want. We're going to have this opening, and we'll make it fit your music. We’re telling the story of this one soldier and how he can make a difference."

My grandfather was in World War II, so I wrote this hymn-like elegy with choir, orchestra, and melody, drawing directly from my heart and my own family. I imagined my grandfather—one man—making a difference, being away from his family, and what he would feel risking his life for his brothers and sisters in the war. That was really where it came from. Thematically, and in terms of the kind of music I love to write, that was my first real foray into something that I felt was truly my voice.

I was lucky enough to work for Basil Poledouris and Michael Kamen, and I really grew up with their influence. The thing that makes both of them special is passion. If you listen to their music—whether it's Robin Hood, Band of Brothers, Conan, or even Free Willy—there’s an incredible amount of heart and passion in their melodic writing and scoring. It feels authentic. In modern scoring, sometimes you’re encouraged to be more restrained, and if you go over the top with emotion and passion, people might say, "Oh, that's old-fashioned." But I don’t believe that. I think when the characters warrant it, you should embrace it.

I love being in situations where I can be passionately enthusiastic or exuberant with my writing and melodies. Sometimes that passion is expressed in something beautiful, sometimes in something scary. For example, I consider Homelander’s theme on violin to be very passionate—it’s crazy, he’s a maniac, but it's still passion. It’s not healthy passion, but it is passion. On the other hand, the theme for Back in Action is also passionate—both as a spy theme in big action sequences and in the emotional moment when the family is saved at the end. It’s very sweet, very warm—it’s about a mom and dad who love their kids, and as a parent, I could very much relate to that.

For me, I think that passion runs through all my work, even in my songs. When I wrote End of the Line for Rogers: The Musical, where old Cap is talking to young Cap and giving him advice, I related to it as a parent. I wanted that song to be over-the-top passionate in its message. That’s the kind of storytelling I connect with, whether it's a big orchestra, a small ensemble, electronics, or a song with lyrics. I try to bring that same emotional depth to everything I do, and hopefully, that’s what people recognize me for.

Q: Can you tell us about your current and upcoming projects ?

Christopher Lennertz: Yes! Well, I’ve got a couple of exciting ones. We're doing Season 2 of Gen V, the The Boys spin-off, right now, which is really cool. I can't tell you anything that happens, but we're right in the middle of Season 2, and I think that's going to be released hopefully later this year. That will continue a lot of the storylines that were happening in Season 4 of The Boys, and then Season 5 of The Boys, which is shooting right now, will come right after that. That’s the last season, so it's going to be really exciting. I do not know who lives or dies, but I'm very excited to find out, just like everyone else! But I know that it's going to be insane and wonderful—I think that's going to be really cool.

And then, you know, the other thing they announced, which is really great, is another spin-off called The Boys: Mexico, which is going to be a Soldier Boy origin story. It’s going to be a period piece, which is neat, and it will bring back Jensen Ackles, who I love.

I've also got a movie coming out for Amazon this summer called The Pickup, with Eddie Murphy, Keke Palmer, and Pete Davidson. It’s a really fun buddy action film, and they have great chemistry. We just finished recording that right before the holidays in London. It's a really fun score with all kinds of groove, some classic brass mixed with great vocals, soul influences, and things like that. So that should be a really fun movie as well. I think it comes out maybe in July or August this summer.

Christopher Lennertz is a renowned American composer and songwriter celebrated for his versatile contributions across film, television, and video games. He pursued his musical education at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, studying under the esteemed Elmer Bernstein. Throughout his career, Christopher Lennertz has collaborated with notable directors such as Tim Hill, Matthew O'Callaghan, Seth Gordon, and Tim Story. His dynamic range is evident in scores for comedies like Horrible Bosses and Ride Along, as well as family films including Hop and Alvin and the Chipmunks. In television, he is acclaimed for his work on series like Supernatural, Revolution, Agent Carter, Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock and The Boys. His contributions to the video game industry are highlighted by his compositions for the Medal of Honor series. In recognition of his impactful career, Christopher Lennertz was honored as a BMI Icon at the 2023 Film, TV & Visual Media Awards.

Synopsis : 
Having long since resigned from the CIA to start a family, Emily and Matt are caught up in espionage when their cover is blown...

Back in Action
Directed by Seth Gordon
Written by Seth Gordon, Brendan O'Brien
Produced by Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Sharla Sumpter Bridgett, Beau Bauman, Seth Gordon
Starring Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, Andrew Scott, Jamie Demetriou, Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close
Cinematography : Ken Seng
Edited by Peter S. Elliot
Music by Christopher Lennertz
Production companies : Chernin Entertainment, Exhibit A, Good One
Distributed by Netflix
Release date : January 17, 2025 (United States)
Runnin Time : 112 minutes

We would like to thank composer Christopher Lennertz for taking the time to speak with our media.

Photos SDCC 2024 : Boris Colletier / Mulderville

Photos Back in Action : Copyright Netflix