The Hollywood Reporter (Weekly)
ROGER SUEN COMPOSER
SUEN’S SCORE FOR BLUE
Bayou is hauntingly plaintive and atmospheric, at times employing stringed instruments like the violin, viola and cello — both bowed and plucked. But the cello sounds more like an erhu, a traditional twostringed Chinese instrument, while the pizzicato style of plucking the violin makes it sound more like a charango, a small Andean instrument in the lute family.
This stylistic approach is meant to underscore the duality experienced by Antonio (played by Chon), a Korean raised by Americans in Louisiana. “We wanted instruments not to sound like one or the other,” explains Suen, 38. “The whole idea behind that was Antonio is not one or the other.”
Like Antonio in the movie, Suen has experienced his own sense of alienation. His parents moved to the U.S. in the 1970s, having fled Taiwan and its then-militant regime. They ended up in Ventura, California, where Suen, a firstgeneration Asian American, found himself in the extreme minority.
“It was largely white and Hispanic, pretty much working-class,” he recalls of his neighborhood. “There was a lot of racism that I dealt with — a lot of bullying, a lot of name-calling. Kids can be pretty nasty. Masculinity is just not a thing American culture recognizes in Asian men. That was something you feel has always been questioned.”
Initially, his parents did what they could to make ends meet, with his dad eventually earning an engineering degree and his mother starting her own day care business. Suen, the youngest of three siblings, found safe harbor in music. As a trombonist and pianist, he spared no opportunity to hone his budding skills in Ventura High’s music program.
“I played in the marching band, a normal orchestra and a wind orchestra,” he says. “There’s this thing called All State Honor Band that I did every year. I was in a ska band as a trombone player. I was also in a brief Guns N’ Roses cover band in high school. I actually sang, believe it or not.”
He was accepted to UCLA as a music major but hedged his bets by also following in his father’s footsteps. “I ended up graduating with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering,” he says, noting that he’d completed only half of his music courses. After a brief, unfulfilling stint as an engineer, he went back to school at Cal State Northridge to finish his bachelor’s in music composition.
Beginning in 2010, he toiled for years in TV and documentaries, until creating additional music for composer John Ottman on X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) opened up new vistas. “That really allowed me to get the experience and the chops to play with the big boys,” he says. Also formative was his work with composer John Paesano on Netflix’s Daredevil series.
Although Suen scored Chon’s previous two features, he considers Blue Bayou his biggest breakthrough to date. His dream project would allow him to scale up.
“Aside from dramas like Blue Bayou with strong social agendas,” he says, “I would love to do a big action-adventure film, whether it’s a Marvel thing like Shang-Chi or something similar. I love action films with a big orchestral palette.”
While his accomplishments are considerable and his future assured, the adversity Suen faced growing up affects him to this day, even if the slights take a more subtle, even subliminal, form. “I have a constant self-doubt,” he admits. “I always feel I have to prove myself, even in the music I write. And it’s something I feel constantly.”
OTHER CREDITS ESPN’s Stephon Marbury documentary A Kid From Coney Island, additional music for The Shape of Water and Netflix’s Red Notice
NEXT UP Chon’s next feature, Jamojaya, and PBS doc Battle for the Schools
“I ALWAYS FEEL I HAVE TO PROVE MYSELF, EVEN IN THE MUSIC I WRITE. IT’S SOMETHING I FEEL CONSTANTLY.” ROGER SUEN