John Williams, 54-Time Oscar Nom, Never Liked Film Music

What do Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Home Alone, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and three Harry Potter films all have in common? The music of John Williams.

But the 93-year-old composer recently admitted that he’s not actually a fan of music composed for movies. “I never liked film music very much,” he told The Guardian in an interview published on Sunday, Aug. 24. 

“Film music, however good it can be — and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … I just think the music isn’t there,” Williams continued. “That, what we think of as this precious great film music is … we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way …”

“Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think,” he explained, noting that film music is “ephemeral” and “fragmentary,” unlike music that’s “a concert piece.”

Williams is a 54-time Oscar nominee, with most of his nominations in the Best Original Score category. He has five wins for his work on Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler’s List.

Williams is the most-nominated living person, and second-most nominated person all time after Walt Disney, has 59 total nominations. His nomination for 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny made him the oldest nominee ever. He’s also won 26 Grammys, seven BAFTAs, three Emmys and four Golden Globes.

Biographer Tim Greiving — whose book, John Williams: A Composer’s Life, will be released this fall — spoke of Williams’ disdain for film music. “His comments are sort of shocking, and they are not false modesty. He is genuinely self-deprecating and deprecating of ‘film music’ in general,” he explained to The Guardian.

Though Williams called his film composing work “just a job,” Grieving added, “He clearly took the job of composing music for films as seriously as anyone in history ever has.”

Williams also said he had a “very special collaboration” with Steven Spielberg. The two have collaborated on nearly 30 films, with three of his Oscar wins being for the director’s projects. “He’s more … musically educated than most of the directors that I’ve worked with,” the composer said, crediting Spielberg’s mother for taking him to classical music concerts. “He played a little clarinet. And he is very musical.”

Williams’ non-film work includes dozens of concertos, as well as music composed for NBC Sunday Night Football and four Olympic Games, including “Olympic Fanfare and Theme,” which was created for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and has since become a staple of the sporting competition.

He also served as the principal conductor for the Boston Pops from 1980 to 1993. He now serves as the laureate conductor for the orchestra.

Back in 1980, when he first joined the Boston Pops, Williams spoke to PEOPLE about the grueling production cycle for a movie score. “It’s difficult to write 60 to 90 minutes of music in six to 10 weeks,” he said. “Like writing an opera, it tests your endurance. And there are frustrations, like having to record something in two minutes and 30 seconds on the nose.”

When hired for a film, he walks into the screening room without having read the script so he can have “a better rhythmic response” to the visuals. “All I want to do is work,” he told PEOPLE of his busy career.

Williams added, “If Armageddon came and blew up everything, in a few days, someone would pick up a reed, even if only for a war song. The impulse to make music is the greatest fun in life. I guess I’m living my dream. I’m just asking for more of it.”