Oscar nominee reactions

By ANGELA DAWSON, The Hour, Posted on 01/22/2009

(...) "It's always exciting and particularly with 'Wall-E,' because I worked on it for so many years. I think I started in late 2005, so it's kind of satisfying to see there's some recognition to that end. We sensed from the beginning that this animated movie was going to be different, but you never know how it's going to turn out. It always was a risky thing. Along the way, there were moments of doubt and moments of great pride. Ultimately, as it got close to being completed, all of us realized it was working. By the end of the movie you were just so involved with these two robots who were in love with each other. I went to England to meet with (co-writer) Peter Gabriel for a short period of time and we kind of hammered out the basic form of a song in about a day and a half. We talked from time to time and shared ideas from time to time digitally, and we kind of worked from there. We played the song for Andrew Stanton and the other people at Pixar and they approved it and liked it, and Peter did some additional work and we backed and forthed it and the song was kind of born." -- Thomas Newman, Best Song nominee for "Down to Earth" (with Peter Gabriel) and Best Score nominee for "Wall-E"