The epic soundtrack score was composed by Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer. 

Zimmer and Nolan planned to move away from the trilogy's scores and to come up with a unique one. Zimmer said, "The textures, the music, and the sounds, and the thing we sort of created has sort of seeped into other people's movies a bit, so it's time to reinvent. The endless string [ostinatos] need to go by the wayside, the big drums are probably in the bin."

Before (re)writing a word of Interstellar, Nolan did something he had never done before, something that speaks to his desire for more emotionally potent work. He asked composer Hans Zimmer to write some music for the film, but without telling him about the genre, title, characters, or plot: “I said, ‘I am going to give you an envelope with a letter in it. One page. It’s going to tell you the fable at the center of the story. You work for one day, then play me what you have written.’ He was up for it. And it was perfect. He gave me the heart of the movie.” Zimmer says he remembers this idea from Nolan’s letter: “Once we become parents, we can’t help but look at ourselves through the eyes of our children.”

Zimmer conducted 45 scoring sessions for Interstellar, which was three times more than for Inception. Interstellar was nominated for Original Score for the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, contending with six other films.