Interview: Composer Amelia Warner Discusses ‘Young Woman and the Sea’

Joachim Rønning’s Young Woman and the Sea is adapted from Glenn Stout’s book on the same name, and chronicles the inspiring journey of Trudy Ederle (Daisy Ridley), who became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. However, this story has been largely forgotten in history, even if Ederle paved the way for more women to not only compete in sports, but perform impressive athletic feats. 

Composer Amelia Warner, who spoke to Awards Radar during a Zoom press day, had not heard of Ederle before joining the movie, and explained that “one of the driving forces for all of us was to try and bring this story to people’s attention. Because it was like she’d been forgotten in time. She’s not a name that you’re spoken about at school or in all of those amazing books about women. She always seemed to be left out. When I saw that footage of the of the parade, I just couldn’t believe that I’d never heard this woman’s name, and it hadn’t happened that long ago.”

In representing this story on screen for the first time, Warner explains that crafting the score for the movie was “such a joy,” because “there are big sequences and parts of the film where the music tells a story. We need to know what’s happening because she’s in the water often, and there are extended periods where you don’t see her face. The music really had to tell the story or evoke the right emotions.”

In many instances, the score had to be the main narrative tool, which is something she often talked about with director Joachim Rønning: 

“I loved working with Joachim. We all collectively felt this responsibility towards Trudy to get it right. It was hard at times, and there were disagreements, but they all came from an amazing place of us wanting to do her justice and tell her story. Joachim really loves music, and it’s important to him that we are all on the same page.”

Finding the right music for its swimming sequences was particularly hard, as Warner explains, because “you’re competing with water, which is quite noisy. You have this white noise of splashing. We had to find frequencies and tones that would push through all that noise. The electric cello was important and a key piece of those sequences. It gave everything this pulse that stays present throughout, even if there was a lot of noise and other stuff happening. I felt like that just gave us a perfect pulse and propulsion. The percussion was also vital, as I was trying to get the bass and those lower tones so that you could feel the music, even though there was a lot of white noise with the swimming. I think those were the things that really helped.”

During our video conversation, seen below, we also discussed the process of being rhythmically in sync with Trudy’s strokes (as Sian Clifford‘s Charlotte Epstein says in the movie, “28 beats per minute, like music!”), working with the cinematographer and editors to find a musicality with the images on screen, chronicling Trudy’s emotional journey through the score, and what was the most rewarding aspect of working on this film. 

You can check out my full interview with Amelia below and stream Young Woman and the Sea on Disney+ today: 

[Some of the quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity]