HBO’s U.S. Against the World follows the U.S. Men’s National Team across four years of pressure, change, and personal sacrifice. The series spans countries, competitions, and defining moments for a team carrying the weight of national expectation.
For editor Lucas Harger, that story needed a score that could move with the same range. It had to hold the scale of international soccer, the intimacy of family and identity, and the emotional swings that come with representing your country on the world stage.
That led him to composer Hannah Parrott.
Listen to Hannah’s music on Musicbed.
The Musicbed community knows Hannah for her epic, sweeping, and emotive scores. With U.S. Against the World, that is on full display. Now we get a behind the scenes look at how those come to life.
We spoke with Harger about why he turned to Hannah for the series, how her music shaped the emotional rhythm of the edit, and what made her such a trusted creative partner across nearly five hours of story.
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MUSICBED: What drew you to Hannah Parrott for U.S. Against the World?
LUCAS HARGER: I had worked with Hannah on a couple projects before this one, and I’ve always been impressed by her instrumentation and her ability to tap into emotion, both big and small. And I knew that that was going to be an important aspect in this project.
And with my editing style and the editing style of the show, specifically going from the mountain peaks and then smashing down into the valleys, I needed someone who could craft the music to match. The emotional roller coaster of the cut, the sound design, the mix, and all of the elements needed to be reflected in the music, and I knew that Hannah could do that.
Along with that, I’m always impressed with her approach to instrumentation. She thinks outside the box and isn’t constrained by standard instrumentation. She’s willing to explore and go wide.
She went really wide with this soundtrack, which was super exciting. I knew that she could hit all of the emotional beats, but also all of the genre beats because our national team and this show are so international.
We have people from all over the world. The cameras were everywhere. Rand, Janina, and Luke went everywhere to capture this story. We needed those culturally rich textures present in the soundtrack.
Is there a specific piece of Hannah’s music that you heard and thought, “Yep, we need her to score our series”?
LUCAS HARGER: Before I had worked with Hannah personally, I had found a couple of her tracks on Musicbed and used them in commercials or short films. So I always kind of had her in mind.
Then we did After Death, where she was the composer. I cut a film called The Story of Everything, and she was the composer on that as well. That was the moment I knew she was the one.
It wasn’t necessarily a specific piece of music. I already knew she had the musical ability. What really stood out was the way she collaborated, communicated, her speed, attention to detail, and her sensitivities throughout the process.
During The Story of Everything, I realized that, because of how closely we would need to collaborate on a project like this, she was exactly the right fit. There is five hours of music in the series, and I knew how often we’d be working together.
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As the creative hub of the show, I was constantly going back and forth with Hannah, then bringing ideas to Rand and back again. Having worked with her on previous projects, I knew she was the one.
Talk to us about your creative collaboration with Hannah. What made Hannah a strong creative partner for this project?
LUCAS HARGER: A lot of the things I said in the previous answer apply here as well, but one thing that stands out is Hannah’s excitement, passion, and drive.
I’ve worked with composers whose passion doesn’t always seem present, whether that’s for the story, the characters, the craft, or the art. Every conversation with Hannah was filled with passion. I could tell that she genuinely cared.
She cared about the story, the characters, and the craft. She wanted every piece of music she created to be engaging, emotional, artistically motivated, and expertly crafted.
That core foundation of being passionate about both the story and the art was really the nucleus of our collaboration.
Tell us about a scene in the series where the music unlocked something that was difficult to express through dialogue or footage alone.
LUCAS HARGER: There are several scenes where that was the case, but one that stands out is early in Episode One. We had been having conversations about the national anthem and how much it should be part of the soundtrack and the musical motifs throughout the series.
Early on, when the team first arrives in Qatar, Gregg Berhalter is speaking to the players. He’s talking about this being the culmination of childhood dreams, the pride of representing your country, and the reality that the World Cup is finally here.
There were many different themes all layered together in that moment. It also felt like the perfect opportunity to introduce some of the national anthem elements we had been discussing.
There was a complex emotional tapestry in the scene, with all of these related but distinct ideas working together. Hannah’s music became the thing that unified it all.
There was nostalgia, there were echoes of the national anthem, and there was also this building momentum and excitement around the tournament itself. She took all of those different emotional threads and brought them together into a cohesive scene.
Did Hannah’s score elevate any particular aspects or episodes of the show? What role does music play for you as an editor in a series like this?
LUCAS HARGER: Hannah’s score elevated and pushed the entire series in every single second of the show. We are very sound-forward at Outpost. We’re very sound-design-driven and very music-driven.
For a series like this, we wanted to ride the line between leading the audience and taking them on a journey, rather than letting them sit back, disengage, and reach for a second screen.
Music became one of our primary tools of attention. It helped guide the audience toward what to consider, what to remember, what to feel, and what to pay attention to. It became a constant collaboration between the cut and the music.
We spent a lot of time thinking about pace: when to cut, how quickly to cut, and how to move through scenes rhythmically.
There are moments where the edit is the thing pulling the audience forward and directing their attention. Then there are moments where Hannah’s music takes over that responsibility and becomes the force guiding the audience through the experience.
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That collaboration between the cut and the music was one of the most exciting creative aspects of making the show.
Explore Hannah Parrott on Musicbed
