Clint Mansell is an outlier. Blunt, British, and formally untrained, he’s a film composer who doesn’t follow convention or kowtow. He’s always been more of an auteur’s composer than a populist, ever since he declared himself to Hollywood with a minimalist earworm score for Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream.

In this interview, Mansell discusses his work on Loving Vincent, his relationships with Aronofsky and Jones, his score for the Black Mirror episode “San Junipero” (which recently won an Emmy for best TV movie) — and how he can’t help but hear himself and his emotional state in the music he writes.