Ennio Morricone is hoping it will be sixth time lucky at this year's Oscars, where he has been nominated for the musical score for Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight.
"I hope that this time there will be [Oscar victory]," 87-year-old Morricone told Reuters in an interview.
Morricone's previous Oscar bids include his work for Bugsy and The Untouchables, but it is perhaps his loss for his critically-acclaimed The Mission score — when Herbie Hancock scooped the honor for Round Midnight — that is the sorest.
"I am not certain it will happen so I am going there tranquil, serene, hopeful that it goes well," said Morricone, who received an Honorary Academy Award in 2007 for "his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music."
His The Hateful Eight work has already won a Golden Globe and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award, which he received in London on Tuesday after being unable to make the official ceremony due to his tour commitments.
"This is something amazing, unexpected because in my type of work, you don't think of the positive or negative consequences," Morricone said.
"In general, there aren't negative ones,” he said. “But sometimes there can also be negative consequences, that is the film doesn't succeed or people don't like the music. But this time, everything went well, thank goodness. I am happy, amazed."
Before the Feb. 28 Oscars, Morricone will be honored with a star on the Walk of Fame, with Tarantino among the guest speakers at the ceremony on the famed Hollywood boulevard.
Hundreds of films
Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone began his film music composer career in 1961 with the Luciano Salce directed movie Il Federale and has since scored more than 450 films.
Asked if a particular period in his career stood out, Morricone said he had several preferred directors: "There are, but I won't say, some whom I prefer, because it is not just one. I prefer to stay quiet."
Morricone has had generations of movie fans humming his tunes from his work on A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with director Sergio Leone.
At his London concert Tuesday, it was those tracks, along with other favorites from Once Upon a Time in the West that had the audience whistling and clapping the loudest.
"It is difficult to explain it because sometimes all you need is an idea that, once developed, becomes something," Morricone said when asked about his composing protocol. "Sometimes, there is no idea at all, one looks for something and at the moment I least expect it, it comes to me. It comes, but I don't know how, it is a mystery."