Klaus Badelt

Composer Klaus Badelt has a knack for nailing the tone of Hollywood's biggest action adventures, and his career took off after his work with Hans Zimmer on the Oscar-winning epic "Gladiator." After working on several TV series and film scores in his native Germany, beginning with the hit crime show "Peter Strohm," Badelt caught Zimmer's ear with his work, and he was invited out to Los Angeles's Media Ventures, which Zimmer owns with producer Jay Rifkin. Zimmer and Badelt's sensibilities meshed well, and the two worked together on scores for Terrence Malick's meditative war film "The Thin Red Line" and Disney's animated adventure "The Prince of Egypt." Soon Badelt was working on his own, creating tense scores for such action adventures as Kathryn Bigelow's nuclear-submarine thriller, "K-19: The Widowmaker," and the wildly popular Disney adventure "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." Since Hollywood discovered his unique talents, Badelt has worked on multiple films each year, be they big-budget blockbusters or straight-to-video releases.