Prolific film composer Hans Zimmer steps into the spotlight

Hans Zimmer is already a rock star to movie fans.

Whether it’s the big, thundering action scores to the “Dark Knight” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies or the more understated backdrop to “As Good As It Gets,” the 59-year-old German composer has been a multiplex fixture since the early ’90s. The biggest movie star you wouldn’t recognize.

Until Friday, anyway. “Hans Zimmer Live” brings the composer and an orchestra to the Park Theater at the Monte Carlo, part of a new public face that also finds him playing the Coachella music festival.

“I think there comes a point where after you’ve done a lot of film scores, you’ve got to be a little bit honest and not hide behind the movie anymore, and just stand up in front of an audience and just have them look you in the eye, and play the music. And see if it actually means something without a film, if it can stand on its own two feet,” Zimmer noted in November, when the short tour went on sale.

Zimmer first toured in Europe last year. “This started a couple of years ago when a couple of my rock ’n’ roll friends were basically trying to get me out of my dark room,” he explained. He protested, “I’ve got stage fright, I can’t do this.”

But they told him, “That’s not an excuse,” and “basically put me on a bus and sent me on the road in Europe.”

And he quickly realized it was the right thing to do. While past film composer greats such as John Barry and Jerry Goldsmith occasionally conducted live orchestras, more toil in anonymity. “I’ve been working with all these phenomenal film composers over the years, and I just wanted the audience to meet them, and them to meet the audience,” Zimmer noted.

With a career that ranges from “The Lion King” and the new “The Boss Baby” to R-rated fare such as “Blackhawk Down” and “Hannibal,” Zimmer said his live audiences really drove home the diversity. “There would be a grandmother, and standing next to her is a kid with a mohawk,” he says.

“When you leave the words off, you suddenly have music that does unite.”

It’s just coincidence that Zimmer makes his Las Vegas debut only three weeks after his protege Ramin Djawadi brought his “Game of Thrones” score to the MGM Grand Garden. “We’re in the same (office) building, but it doesn’t mean we see each other that often. I had no idea he was going out again,” Djawadi said.

But Zimmer had a delighted mischief in his voice when he said audiences shouldn’t expect a philharmonic pops-type evening of John Williams or Henry Mancini music.

“I just warn you, we’re not as quiet as the ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ things,” he said. “We are rock and roll. We are a little louder.”

Contact Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288. Follow @Mikeweatherford on Twitter.