ScreenRant and Collider hosted a major event in Los Angeles to celebrate Hans Zimmer and his new film, Hans Zimmer & Friends: Diamond In The Desert, with Zimmer, his family, his band and many industry tastemakers in attendance.

Hans Zimmer & Friends: Diamond In The Desert centers on a concert held by the composer and his impressive band during a live performance at Coca-Cola Arena in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai. Diamond in the Desert is largely focused on the intricate and lively concert that Zimmer and his band had in Dubai while on a global tour playing scores from The Lion King, Wonder Woman, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar. While many of these songs are filmed on the stage, Interstellar and Gladiator have unique and jaw-dropping visual motifs to accompany the music.

The performance is intercut with conversations between Zimmer and his cinematic collaborators like Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve. Directed by Paul Dugdale - who has previously directed concert films with Taylor Swift and the Rolling Stones - the film naturally bounces back and forth between the formats for a lively time.

On March 11, Valnet brands ScreenRant and Collider held an early screening of Diamond in the Desert for representatives from across the entertainment industry at AMC Theatres at The Grove in Los Angeles. The event served as an excitable gathering for Hans' band, filmmakers, industry executives, entertainment journalists, and movie fans.

Ahead of the screening, ScreenRant's music coverage. Then, following the screening, Collider's Editor-in-Chief Steven Weintraub sat down with Hans Zimmer for a conversation that covered the film, his career highlights, how he moved into live performance, and his projects like the Brad Pitt-led F1.

Looking back on his career, Zimmer said that he believes some of his most underrated work was in Steve McQueen's Blitz.

It’s like Blitz with Steve McQueen—since none of you saw it. When he showed it to me, because it's the experience of a child during the war, I said to him, “I'm going to write the ugliest, most atonal score ever in the world that guaranteed no soundtrack album.” Of course, there's a soundtrack album, but because children feel things so much more acutely, and I wanted the adults who began to see this film just be terrorized by the music. Steve McQueen, of course, loved that idea. I getting a text one night from our producers after a couple of weeks of me doing some pretty horrible things, and the text just said, “That takes balls.”

He also revealed that despite being regarded as one of the world's most influential cinematic composers, he has "imposter syndrome like crazy."

Part of the imposter syndrome was I loved film. I loved movies, I loved storytelling, and I loved the thing that Pharrell quite rightly recognized: I loved hiding behind the screen.

What's interesting is that, despite being so well-known for his works in the 1990s and 2000s, he always feels that it's his last work that he wants people to listen to first, to be introduced to his compositions.

It's always the last thing, really. I sort of love Dune. I love where I am right now, but my style has shifted and changed over the years. Of course, it has because I get bored very easily. And why? Because the Dune family is amazing. Because the Dune family, as far as music is concerned, is this band that you just saw up on the screen. Had we not known each other so well, because the first part of Dune was done during COVID, I don't think I would have been able to pull it off because all the musicians could record at home, and they knew what I meant because we've been playing together.

Going back to his early years, Zimmer discussed his involvement with the hit music video "Video Killed The Radio Star," and how that came to be.

Ruined a whole generation, didn't I? No, it was really Trevor Horn, whose band it was. I was the lowly, thin synth guy. But Trevor had this vision that music and visuals were going to come and be connected, so we made this video two years before MTV came out, and we couldn't give it away. Then MTV came out, and they didn't have anything, so we were the first video on MTV. It's as simple as that. It's just being in the right place at the right time.

Of course, no matter what Zimmer does in his career, he will always have a whole generation that loves his work on The Lion King, which he says is very special to him. He talked about how much of his soul he poured into it.

All and everything. I really did. And having Lebo [M.], it was an extraordinary process. It was an extraordinary time. Disney had very little hope that that film was going to succeed because it wasn't princesses, so we had a lot of freedom. The other thing I said to them was, “I hate musicals.” They said, “We guarantee you it'll never be a musical.” But we had all these pieces left over and we went back to Africa and recorded the second album, Rhythm of the Pride Lands, which were the leftover bits, and we got into big trouble because we were spending money after the movie had come out, and, “Why are you guys still recording?” But that became the foundation for the musical. So, I did everything wrong.

Zimmer is one of the best composers alive, and his work will be ed for generations to come, but that's not important to him. He just wants to live in the moment.

I never thought about that. I’m living in the moment. I absolutely live in the moment, as everybody in my band will testify to, because I can't what I'm supposed to be playing from one of those movies that apparently is going to go down in history. So, no, I've never thought about this. It's a good question, but I think it's a question I don't really want to tackle, too. Here's the thing: we have a lot of fun on those movies. There's a lot of silliness that goes on while we do some very serious work, and I do want to keep that levity as opposed to, “Oh my god, we are going to go down in history,” something or the other.