Robert Lopez | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Lopez in 2018 | |
| Born | (1975-02-23)February 23, 1975 (age 50) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Yale University (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Songwriter playwright |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Full list |
Robert Lopez (born February 23, 1975) is an American songwriter for musicals and playwright, best known for co-creatingThe Book of Mormon andAvenue Q, and for co-writing the songs featured in the Disney animated filmsFrozen, its sequelFrozen 2, andCoco, with his wifeKristen Anderson-Lopez. He is signed toDisney Music Publishing.[1]
Lopez is one of only twenty-seven people who have won anEmmy, aGrammy, anOscar, and aTony Award, nicknamed byPhilip Michael Thomas in 1984 as the "EGOT". He additionally holds the distinction of being the youngest person to win an EGOT. He is also the only person to have won all four awards more than once, having won two Oscars, three Tonys, three Grammys, and four Emmys.[2] With a second set of competitive wins beginning with his June 27, 2010, Emmy and concluding with his March 4, 2018, Academy Award, he has broken his own 'fastest to complete' record, establishing a new fastest EGOT interval at 7 years and 8 months.
Robert Lopez was born inManhattan, to Katherine (Lowe) and Frank Lopez.[3][4] He is partly ofFilipino descent through his father (who was born on a ship in the middle of the ocean after departing Manila); his paternal grandfather was Filipino, and his paternal grandmother was of half Filipino and half Scottish-American descent (both originally resided in Manila).[5] His father was director of publications forNYU Langone Medical Center.[3]
Lopez spent much of his childhood inGreenwich Village, except for one year inMassachusetts while his father was working forClark University.[3] Upon their return to New York City when he was six years old, "it was a fluke" that he started piano lessons at Greenwich House Music School.[3] The apartment they were subletting at the time happened to have a piano; his mother asked if he was interested in taking lessons, and he said yes.[3] At age seven, his parents bought a piano for him,[3] he saw his firstBroadway show,[6] and he wrote his first song.[7] At age 11, he wrote his first opening number.[6] At around age 12, he briefly moved away from the piano and tried playing the saxophone, as well as taking courses inmusical composition at other music schools.[3]
Lopez went to Hunter College Elementary School andHunter College High School, and then on toYale University where he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English (the type of academic degree expressly discussed in the second song ofAvenue Q).[3][6] While at Yale, he wrote three plays (of which two were musicals) and was a member of the YaleSpizzwinksa cappella group, and was influenced by professors such asVincent Scully,John Hollander andHarold Bloom.[8] During his time at Yale, he vaguely hoped to make a living writing musicals and "had no [other] career options"; towards that end, he avoided courses that would prepare him for a career in something more secure like law or medicine.[3][6]
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Upon graduating from Yale, Lopez moved back in with his parents and brother in Greenwich Village, where he lived for four years until he was able to earn enough money writing songs forTheatreworks USA to rent an apartment of his own.[3] During this period, he took temporary jobs at companies likePfizer[9] and worked as a weekend receptionist for his old music school, Greenwich House.[3]
In 1998, while participating in theBMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, he met another aspiring songwriter,Jeff Marx. Their first project together,Kermit, Prince of Denmark, aMuppet parody ofHamlet, won theKleban Award for lyrics, thoughThe Jim Henson Company rejected the script, saying it did not have enough "kid appeal."[7] The story was considered for the next Muppet film by Chris Curtin in 2004, until Curtin left the Disney Company. Highlights from the unproduced musical were performed byRick Lyon, Rebecca Jones, andSusan Blackwell at theBMI Workshop.
In 1999, Lopez and Marx, who collaborated on both music and lyrics, began work onAvenue Q, a stage musical which, using puppet characters, similar to those onSesame Street, dealt with adult themes and ideas. The show, for which Lopez also provided the animated segments, was his first professional experience.[10] After playingOff-Broadway, the show transferred in July 2003 toBroadway'sJohn Golden Theatre, where it proved both a critical and popular success, winning the 2004Tony Award for Best Musical, and earning Lopez and Marx theTony Award for Best Original Score.[11] TheOriginal Cast Recording was nominated for aGrammy Award in 2004.
In 2005, Lopez began working on a new musical project with his musical partnerJeff Marx, and withMatt Stone andTrey Parker, the creators ofSouth Park,[10] a series which, in 2003, Lopez had mentioned as a partial inspiration forAvenue Q.[7]The Book of Mormon premiered on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011, following previews from February 24. The show received numerous theater awards, including the 2011 Tony for Best Musical, as well as two more Tony Awards for Lopez: Best Original Score andBest Book of a Musical.[11] The production's original cast recording also earned Lopez the 2012Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.[12]
In early 2006, Lopez collaborated with his brother, Billy, on several episodes of theNickelodeon seriesWonder Pets, for which they shared a Daytime Emmy award with the series' other composers and music director, Jeffrey Lesser, in 2008. In January 2007, amusical adaptation of the Disney/Pixar filmFinding Nemo, which Lopez co-wrote with his wife,Kristen Anderson-Lopez, opened atDisney's Animal Kingdom theme park.
On January 18, 2007, Lopez and Marx again collaborated to write four of the songs for the hit TV showScrubs on the show's 123rd episode titled "My Musical." TV Guide named the episode one of the best 100 TV show episodes of all time in 2009. Lopez, along with Jeff Marx, was recognized with an Emmy nomination for the song "Everything Comes Down to Poo" from the above-mentioned episode.[13]Stephanie D'Abruzzo, who originated the roles of Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut inAvenue Q, guest-starred in the episode.
In April 2010, Lopez wrote the song "Bet Against the American Dream," which was featured on the NPR programThis American Life.[14] The song was written in the style of a Broadway show tune, and parodied a scene from the musicalThe Producers to illustrate the story of a real-life hedge fund called Magnetar that made millions of dollars when the housing market collapsed. On June 25, 2010, Lopez won his second Daytime Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for his work onThe Wonder Pets![15] In 2011, Lopez again worked with Matt Stone and Trey Parker on theSouth Park episode "Broadway Bro Down.”
Lopez also co-wrote two songs for the Disney Channel animated seriesPhineas and Ferb: "Aerial Area Rug," for the episode "Magic Carpet Ride," and "Fly On the Wall," for the episode of the same name.[16] Lopez composed a song forThe Simpsons episode "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again" titled "Enjoy It While You Can" which aired on April 29, 2012.
Lopez and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote seven songs forWinnie the Pooh, released in 2011 byWalt Disney Animation Studios.[17] They also wrote an original song forWreck-It Ralph that was cut from the finished film.[18]
In 2013, Lopez and Anderson-Lopez wrote songs for Disney Animation's feature filmFrozen. The song "Let It Go" won theAcademy Award for Best Original Song, making Lopez the 12th person to achieve theEGOT.[19] On February 8, 2015, they won anotherGrammy for their work onFrozen for theGrammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media for "Let It Go".[20]
In development for several years by Lopez and Anderson-Lopez, their romantic-comedy musicalUp Here debuted August 9, 2015, at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.[21][22] Lopez describesUp Here as "It's kind of likeAnnie Hall meetsCirque du Soleil. It's a romantic comedy with a huge theatrical twist."
Lopez and his wife wrote the musical number "Moving Pictures" for the87th Academy Awards.[23]
It was announced in late 2015 that Lopez would be writing original songs for the revival of the cult comedy seriesMystery Science Theater 3000.[24]
Lopez and his wife were attached to write the music for the Disney filmGigantic, an animated retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk", but the film was shelved in October 2017.[25]
The Disney/Pixar filmCoco, released in November 2017, features Lopez and Anderson-Lopez's song "Remember Me". The song won the 2018Academy Award for Best Original Song, making Lopez the first doubleEGOT winner.[26] Lopez and Anderson-Lopez composed the theme music from theMCU showWandaVision, which premiered onDisney+ on January 15, 2021. They returned to write multiple versions of "The Ballad of the Witches’ Road" for theWandaVision spin-offAgatha All Along.[27]
During his participation in the 1999BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, Robert Lopez met and began dating lyricistKristen Anderson.[17][28] As described in a 2003The New York Times profile, the pair, struggling in a cash-strapped post-college period that recalls the storyline ofAvenue Q's Princeton and Kate Monster, "live[d] inAstoria, Queens, [drove] a 1989Buick and survive[d] on fast food".[29]
The couple married in 2003 and their two daughters, Katie and Annie, had voice parts inFrozen, with Katie voicing 5-year-oldAnna and Annie voicing a troll.[30] As of 2014[update] they resided in thePark Slope neighborhood ofBrooklyn.[31]
He is cousins with stand-up comedianTim Dillon. In his youth, he was a Catholic, but in 2011 he called himself "sort of agnostic."[32]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Winnie the Pooh | Music and lyrics | |
| 2013 | Frozen | Music and lyrics | |
| 2015 | Frozen Fever | Music and lyrics | Short film |
| 2017 | Coco | Music and lyrics | |
| 2019 | Frozen 2 | Story writer, music, and lyrics |
| Year | Title | Role | Episode |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006–08 | Wonder Pets! | Composer | 12 episodes |
| 2007 | Scrubs | Music and lyrics | Episode: "My Musical" |
| 2011 | Phineas and Ferb | Music and lyrics | Episode: "Magic Carpet Ride” |
| 2011 | South Park | Music and lyrics | Episode: "Broadway Bro Down" |
| 2017–22 | Mystery Science Theater 3000 | Writer | 2 episodes |
| 2021 | WandaVision | Music and lyrics | 7 episodes |
| 2022 | Central Park | Music and lyrics | Episode: "Castle Sweet Castle" |
| 2023 | Up Here | Writer, executive producer, music, and lyrics | |
| 2024 | Agatha All Along | Lyrics | 9 episodes |
| Year | Title | Role | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Avenue Q | Music and lyrics | John Golden Theatre, Broadway |
| 2006 | Finding Nemo – The Musical | Music and lyrics | Disney's Animal Kingdom |
| 2011 | The Book of Mormon | Book, music, and lyrics | Eugene O'Neill Theatre, Broadway |
| 2015 | Up Here | Book, music, and lyrics | La Jolla Playhouse[22] |
| 2018 | Frozen | Music and lyrics | St. James Theatre, Broadway |
