IDLES frontman Joe Talbot has expressed his desire to make his own film.
During a recent interview with Grammy.COM, Talbot discussed the “once-in-a-lifetime” and “incredible” experience of IDLES scoring Darren Aronofsky’s new crime thriller, Caught Stealing.
The soundtrack for the Austin Butler-starring film features four tracks by the Bristol band, including the recent single ‘Rabbit Run’.
“I wrote all the songs based off the script. I don’t know how any other band would’ve done it – it doesn’t really matter – but for us, it was a huge opportunity to do something creative for someone we love creatively,” Talbot told the outlet.
“I set myself new challenges. I wrote nine songs for the film, and four were included.”
The frontman continued: “I eventually want to make a film myself – I studied film, I like writing dialogue and things like that – so I think really visually when I’m songwriting. As I read the [Caught Stealing] script, I pictured the pace in my head, and from that, got a sense of the songs’ rhythm and tone. I also started referencing films that felt similar just from reading it.”
IDLES met Aronofsky when they both appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “I studied film and he is one of my favourite directors, so I was in awe of the situation,” Talbot recalled.
“We stayed in contact and we hung out a bit, which would have been enough for me, really. It was amazing and inspiring, and he then approached us with the script, and I read it, and the rest is history.”
Describing the collaboration as “a huge gift”, Talbot said there were “maybe one or two other directors who would be as much of a dream to work with, but Darren is in my top three – maybe my favourite”.
He added: “He’s a very smart man and understood that we were perfect for the job. He’s a fan of us, but more than that, filmically and creatively it works really well – there’s humour, there’s violence, and there’s a sense of subversive friction and disdain for fascism. And we love cats.”
Talbot explained that the project “felt right”, and said he’d “been working toward this for a long time, over 20 years”.
With an ambition to create his own film one day, the frontman admitted he’s “still got a lot to learn”, adding: “I felt humbled to be there, but I also felt like it was the right fit. I knew I could do the songs and the film justice.”
He explained that working on Caught Stealing was a “steep learning curve” for IDLES: “[Mark] Bowen, the other songwriter, and I both talk about writing songs visually, using adjectives like dark, light, wide, deep, sharp.”
Talbot then touched on the band entering a collaborative “space we’d never ventured into before” when creating the score with US composer and conductor Rob Simonsen. “We had the driving wheel, and Rob had the map; we were steering based on where he told us to go,” he remembered.
Simonsen described IDLES as “an orchestra” for the Caught Stealing score. The band’s other songs on the official soundtrack are ‘Doom’, ‘Cheerleader’, and a version of ‘Police & Thieves’ – a track famously covered by The Clash on their 1977 self-titled debut album.
Caught Stealing also stars Matt Smith, Zoë Kravitz and Regina King. In a four-star review, NME praised it as a “nostalgic rampage through the ‘90s” with “heart-pounding action and a pumping soundtrack courtesy of IDLES”.
Over the summer, IDLES spoke to NME about marking “the end of an era” with their huge Bristol homecoming gigs last month. They also revealed that they were working on a “more driven” new album, following on from 2024’s ‘Tangk.
“We’ve recorded a bunch of songs,” Talbot told us. “We’ve got like 10 songs and we’re going to go back and do a bunch more. We’re doing some other projects in between, but we’re going to come back to the album later in the year and get it finished. We’re recording with Kenny [Beats] and Nigel [Godrich] again. It’s really magic, I can’t wait.”
As for other IDLES activity, Talbot told NME about an upcoming “film project” – presumably Caught Stealing – and a “computer game project”.
“They are going well,” he explained. “We’ve been working with a composer and doing a score in a studio, which is really cool. I’ve learned a lot, and it’s been really great. It’s been a really busy year, considering I didn’t think it would be busy.”
The frontman concluded by teasing that IDLES had “got plenty coming” in 2026.
Talbot recently joined Gorillaz onstage as the group debuted a brand-new album in full in London. Elsewhere, his bandmate Bowen has contributed to Florence + The Machine‘s upcoming new record, ‘Everybody Scream’, as well as its lead single of the same name.
Last month saw Caught Stealing star Austin Butler give IDLES a shout-out during a music quiz interview. “They’re doing the score, they’re amazing,” he said. “IDLES, baby.”
