INTERVIEW: Will Bates On Scoring 'NCIS: Tony & Ziva,' 'Stiller & Meara,' And The Music Of Storytelling
- Sarah Angelo-Haight
- Oct 9
- 4 min read
If you’ve seen a streaming thriller in the past fifteen years, chances are you’ve heard the work of Will Bates. That’s not his only niche, though: from video games to feature films, Will Bates helps the projects that he works on become a fully immersive experience for the audience. I was able to speak with Mr. Bates about his most recent projects: NCIS: Tony & Ziva, and Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost. He answered questions about his process, favorite motifs, and provides some fantastic insight about the world of composing for both television and film.
SARAH: What was the process of becoming involved in those particular projects? They’re kind of disparate. They're all over the place. What was the process for those?
WILL BATES: I feel kind of fortunate that I'm able to jump around different styles in my career. This was sort of a perfect analogy of the kind of stuff that I do. But we’ll start with NCIS: Tony & Ziva. I worked with John McNamara and the team over there on a show called The Magicians. We did five seasons of that. It was actually my first foray into scoring TV. I was brought on by a wonderful director called Mike Cahill, whose movies I’ve scored over the years, and he brought me on board. Then I joined the family over there. When John started to develop this show, he called me, and that was a while ago — like a year and a half ago. I think they’d been planning to make this show for years.
SARAH: Yeah, it seems like it’s been in the works for a while.
WILL BATES: It has, and our first conversations were about doing something different from The Magicians but with similar wit and intelligence — that’s very much John’s thing as a writer. We talked about Bond, Bernard Herrmann, classic Hollywood scores with a modern twist — that’s the defining characteristic of the show.
SARAH: With Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost — how did you get involved with that?
WILL BATES: I think Ben had heard my score for a movie called Bright Lights, a biopic I did about Carrie Fisher.
SARAH: Yes! That one was phenomenal. I’ll have to go back and watch it again.
WILL BATES: Thank you! Ben’s great friends with Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens, who directed that. They were discussing composers, and they introduced me to him. We had meetings, really hit it off, and I started working on it. I actually wrote sketches while they were still editing, which was a great way to start collaborating. It’s always good to have something to talk about rather than nothing, if that makes sense.
SARAH: That ties into what I wanted to ask next, more about your creative process. You mentioned sketches - can you walk me through how something goes from a melody to the final score on screen?
WILL BATES: Totally. It doesn’t always work the same way, but for both these projects, because I knew John and got involved early on, I was able to just write freely. I tend to throw a lot at the wall. For NCIS, I wrote these suites — including a sweeping love theme for Tony and Ziva that was my favorite thing. I’m always searching for a kind of eureka moment — stumbling on a theme or chord sequence that fits a character or scene. That was the case with both of these projects.
SARAH: When you’re building themes, are there certain musical elements you come back to — like favorite chord progressions or motifs?
WILL BATES: I think we all have tendencies. You can often hear a score and know it’s John Williams, right? We all have signatures. I try to evolve - to move on from where I’ve been. Sometimes I’ll play something and realize, "Wait, that’s Elliott’s theme from The Magicians!" We even have a space in my studio called 'the orphanage' where I put instruments used for specific projects. I get emotionally attached to them, so I retire them there. It helps me keep moving forward creatively.
SARAH: One thing I’ve noticed across your work is this beautiful, subtle tension — the way you use space and silence, especially in The Better Sister. It builds suspense so effectively.
WILL BATES: Thank you, that’s so nice. Yeah, space is important. I have to remind myself not to overfill things. On The Better Sister, I started dense and then stripped things away — finding the simplest way to communicate emotion. That’s something I’ve learned to do over time.
SARAH: In NCIS, there are big action beats. Can you talk a bit about composing for action scenes?
WILL BATES: When I get an episode, I’ll watch it and think, "Oh my god, this will be hard!" It’s a lot of math — especially car chases, like that one in the first episode. So much percussion, twists, turns, finding where to fit the theme. It’s daunting at first but becomes really fun. We actually scored the episodes out of order — starting with episode 3, then 4, 5, and back to 1. That helped me find the musical language before revisiting the start.
SARAH: That’s interesting! It must change your perspective.
WILL BATES: Yeah — and John’s direction was great. In one percussive scene he kept saying, "More drums! Bigger!" Usually you’re told to hold back, but here it was the opposite. It was so fun.
SARAH: That’s awesome. What kind of project do you have the most fun working on?
WILL BATES: I feel lucky to move between genres — horror, sci-fi, fantasy, emotional dramas. Horror is so fun, but recently I’ve been doing more character-driven work, including a documentary for Alex Gibney. It’s very emotive and painful in parts, which makes it meaningful.
SARAH: I look forward to that! I can’t wait to hear what you create.
WILL BATES: Thanks — it’s a fun one.
Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost will be available to stream on Apple+ on October 24, 2025.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva is available to stream on Paramount+, with new episodes being released each Thursday until the finale on October 23, 2025.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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