Will His 12th Oscar Nomination Be Thomas Newman’s Charm? When Robert Altman hired him to s

Will His 12th Oscar Nomination Be Thomas Newman’s Charm?

When Robert Altman hired him to score “The Player,” a 1992 film about the film business, Mr. Newman’s music had already appeared in more than two-dozen pictures. Yet Altman wasn’t satisfied with the composer’s initial contribution. “I was almost fired,” Mr. Newman, 58, said. “I felt I had been hired as a Newman legacy. ‘Let’s let him write for a movie about movies.’ But I was dealt with like an adult and I performed like an adult. You build muscle and you discover you’re good at things you didn’t know you were good at.”

“Since 2003, when he scored Mike Nichols’s "Angels in America” miniseries, he’s put together a bound scrapbook commemorating each project.“

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Leaving his studio for a moment, he returns with his "Saving Mr. Banks” scrapbook. Pointing to a photo of Richard Sherman, who, along with brother Robert, wrote the music for “Mary Poppins,” Mr. Newman said: “He showed up on the last day. What a sweet, kind man. He regaled everyone with stories, including how they came to write 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.’ To get that kind of context was a wonderful thing.”