Every time Noah Cyrus drives by a billboard for the upcoming Universal movie “Reminders of Him,” she gets giddy. It’s not because she’s a Colleen Hoover super fan per se, but Cyrus plays a key part in the project: the Grammy nominee penned the end credits song “Light Over the Hill” — her first track for a movie.
“I feel like I’m on that billboard, even though I’m not,” Cyrus tells Variety, practically bubbling over with excitement. “I’m just so proud of it. Every time we pass the billboards, I say, ‘Oh my god, there’s my movie!’ It really is such a loving project; everything just feels so light and authentic about it.”
Writing a song for a film had been one of Cyrus’ goals for years. (“There are two things you can’t do without music, and that’s fashion and movies and TV. They all go together,” she says.) So, when “Reminders of Him” director Vanessa Caswill reached out to discuss the prospect of writing a piece for the end credits, Cyrus was elated.
Caswill wanted to show her the movie, starring Maika Monroe as Kenna, a young woman who returns to her hometown in Wyoming after serving five years in prison for a tragic mistake and hopes to reconnect with Diem, the daughter she’s never known. Everyone is intent on keeping them apart, but Kenna grows a bond with local bar owner Ledger (Tyriq Withers), who has become an important part of Diem’s life. Rudy Pankow (Scotty, Kenna’s first love and Diem’s late father), Lauren Graham, Bradley Whitford, Nicholas Duvernay and Grammy winner Lainey Wilson round out the ensemble cast.
Cyrus hadn’t read Hoover’s bestseller before the private screening, just her and Caswill, so she was able to react to all the story’s twists and turns in real time. “I’m a movie-before-book person. I have bad ADHD,” Cyrus says. “When I was a little girl, and I saw ‘Twilight’ for the first time, I watched all the [movies] and then read the books.”
That said, Cyrus’ mom, Tish Cyrus-Purcell, is a huge Hoover fan, so she’s a touch jealous that her daughter got a sneak peek at the big-screen adaptation, which hits theaters March 13. (“Oh my gosh, my mom was like, ‘I wish you would have told me. I would have gone,’” Cyrus says, laughing.)
“We watched the film and I took my notes,” Cyrus says. She was particularly touched by the story’s themes about rebirth, which she’d recently explored on “New Country,” a song from her sophomore album. “I had this overwhelming emotion of how freeing it is to make a new start and the chance to rebuild yourself and make a better version of yourself for the people that you love. That inspired me.”
After chatting with Caswill, Cyrus took her notes to the recording studio and got to work with her co-producer and co-writer, PJ Harding. “I was just trying to channel what the movie made me feel,” she says. “We felt this fresh lift of energy and hopefully of having love and family and the chance of a new start. The representation of light and that new beginning.”
As such, the instrumentation on the track became a folky-bluegrass blend. “Everything is so organic. It’s so light and airy [because] that’s what I felt from watching the film from start to finish.”
The song’s title, “Light Over the Hill,” represents a few things. “The light is Scotty. The light is hope. The light is love. The light is moving forward,” Cyrus says. “That’s what life is: every day we wake up and the sun is shining, that’s another blessing.”
Working with Caswill was a dream. “She gave me the artistic freedom to go where I wanted with the song,” Cyrus says. “We had some focal point on what we might want to touch on or specific words that could evoke feelings. But I wanted to create a song that sonically put you in the location and the community they live in, and music that the people in the movie would have liked.”
But writing a song for someone else’s art is a bit different than writing for one’s own vision. “As much as this was my song, I wanted this to complete their film. So, if it wasn’t going to be this song, I was ready to write another song,” Cyrus says. Fortunately, the filmmakers were thrilled with what she’d delivered. “They were just like, ‘This is it. It was everything we all imagined and more,’” she recalls. “We were all very aligned through the whole process. I’m so grateful this was my first opportunity, and it just left me so hungry to do more work with film and TV.”
Coincidentally, Cyrus’ older sister, Miley Cyrus, was recently on the same path, contributing the end credits song for December’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” But Cyrus didn’t ask big sis for advice about writing for the screen; in fact, they didn’t even realize they were both in the studio on the same mission.
“We are so not the family that, like, goes to each other and is like, ‘I’m doing this this week. I’m doing that this week,’” Cyrus says. “I totally didn’t know she was doing the ‘Avatar’ song until it was broadcast on my feed. Then we talked about how cool it was that we both had songs coming out in movies.”
She adds, “I really believe in gifts and blessings and things from the universe that just align, and I think that’s really one of them. It’s been a really, really cool thing to see my sister do her thing, while I also feel like I’m really getting a hold of mine.”
Right now, the younger Cyrus is eagerly anticipating her movie moment. She won’t see the final cut of the “Reminders of Him,” with her song as its coda, until the Los Angeles premiere next month. (And yes, she’s going to make sure her mom sees the movie too.)
“I ran into [Withers], and he was like, ‘I just saw [Caswill] and she was telling me about the song. She is so freaking excited!’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, do you want me to send it to you?’ and he’s like, ‘No! I don’t want to hear it until it’s in the movie.’” Cyrus says, grinning. “So, we’re all gonna see it in the movie together for the first time at the premiere. It’s gonna be such an amazing experience that I’m so, so honored and delighted to be a part of.”
