Screenwriter/Musician/Actor Kent Moran Talks About Listen To Your Heart

This Sunday, April 24, at 8 PM (EST), the Lifetime Movie Network will premiere Listen To Your Heart. The movie revolves around an aspiring musician who falls in love with a sheltered, hearing-impaired woman in New York, and the complexities involved with their relationship.

The film stars Kent Moran, who also served as producer/screenwriter as well as composer/second unit director. He took the time to discuss his film with me via email. In addition to discussing the many aspects of the film he was a part of, we discussed the film's success at numerous film festivals, its popularity on Netflix (Average of 106,997 ratings: 3.9 stars, as of April 21), and working with a talented cast that included Cybill Shepherd. My thanks to Moran for his time and thoughts, as well as to Joy Phillips for helping to arrange the interview.

You wrote the music for the film. I am curious, did you develop the music after you wrote the plot? Or were they developed in parallel? I think part of the movie’s appeal is how well the script and music complement each other. 

Thank you. Most of the songs I wrote specifically for the film, and I wrote them into the script. I knew when I wanted songs to happen in the film. Some songs I wrote while I was writing the script, and others I wrote afterwards and then plugged them in. Still Worth Fighting was a song I had written before [making] the movie and then realized that it fit well. Fight For You was originally written as a different song, to be played when Danny interrupts the dinner party Ariana’s mother throws for her, but after the film was edited, I decided that it didn’t work there and re-wrote it, slowed it down, and put it over the later montage where it now plays. 

The film has a great supporting cast, do you recall when you decided you needed to have a character like George (played by Robert Ousley)? 

The first draft of the script was very similar to the last. George is an example of a character that I always wanted in the script. I didn’t know that Robert would play the role, but I certainly wanted him to. Robert is a Broadway veteran and had played my father in a reading of my first screenplay. I love working with him and think he’s very talented. 

Article Author: Tim O'Shea

Tim O'Shea loves all manner and shape of pop culture. He's been email interviewing creative folks since the late 1990s. When not working with Blogcritics, you can find his email interviews (dating back to late 2007) at his pop culture blog, Talking …

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