Christian Minkler (‘The White Lotus’ sound mixer) on the ‘great surprise’ of receiving his 2nd Emmy nomination [Exclusive Video Interview]

Christian Minkler earned his second career Emmy nomination this year for his sound mixing work on HBO’s anthology series “The White Lotus.” Last year, the artisan competed in the limited series race but now his specific category is Best Comedy/Drama Sound Mixing (One Hour). “My phone started ringing at the exact same time from several different people while I was mixing on stage. It was a great surprise,” he declares about his current bid for Mike White‘s globe-trotting series that chronicles the lives of rich folks at a luxurious hotel. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

For the 2023 Emmys, Minkler is up for the specific episode “Arrivederci,” the finale of the Sicily-set installment in which Jennifer Coolidge‘s beloved alter ego Tanya dies after falling off of a yacht, and Theo James‘ and Will Sharpe‘s characters get into a physical altercation in the ocean. “We felt it was just the strongest sound-wise and it kind of encompassed everything that we’d done all year,” he reveals about why the episode was chosen as his submission.

SEE 2023 Emmys: Complete list of nominees

Speaking about Tanya’s final scene, Minkler explains, “It was supposed to be, all the way up until the reveal of her death, how is this gonna happen? There weren’t any tells that were obvious. So we kind of just played it normal. In fact, I don’t think we played any music for several minutes up until her death, just to not create the extra drama.”

The moment where Tanya is floating underwater is “where sound design and music kind of came together — one became the other,” he says. “It was supposed to be an emotional moment and that’s how we tried to come across with how we integrated the sound design with the music. Hopefully we got it across that way and blended it together nicely to create that emotion.”

“Mike is great,” Minkler raves about White, the showrunner/producer/writer/director. “He and I first worked together in ’08 and then we got together on Season 1. Mike is a very trusting person, so he allows us to have our ideas and take the show into a direction that we might want to go. But at the same time, he’s very focused on what he wants. He’s very detailed in his vision and we follow that map.”

Also in our exclusive video interview, Minkler talks about his collaboration with the “brilliant” composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer, how they remixed and updated the theme song for Season 2 to “give it its own personality,” and what it was like attending the Oscars when he was nominated in Best Sound Mixing for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (2020).

PREDICT the 2023 Emmy winners through September 18

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