Robert Lopez (born February 23, 1975) is an American<!-- Awards don't get listed here --> songwriter and librettist, best known for co-creating The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q, and for co-writing the songs featured in the Disney animated films Frozen, its sequel Frozen 2, and Coco, with his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez. He is signed to Disney Music Publishing.
Lopez is one of only twenty-eight people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award, nicknamed the "EGOT". He additionally holds the distinction of being the youngest person to win an EGOT. He is also the only person to have won all four awards more than once, having won two Oscars, three Tonys, three Grammys, and four Emmys. With a second set of competitive wins beginning with his June 27, 2010, Emmy and concluding with his March 4, 2018, Academy Award, he broke his own 'fastest to complete' record, establishing a new fastest EGOT interval at 7 years and 8 months. This was later broken by Pasek and Paul (7 years 7 months).
Early life
Robert Lopez was born in Manhattan, to Katherine (Lowe) and Frank Lopez. He is partly of Filipino descent through his father (who was born on a ship in the middle of the ocean after departing Manila); his paternal grandfather was Filipino, and his paternal grandmother was of half Filipino and half Scottish-American descent (both originally resided in Manila). His father was director of publications for NYU Langone Medical Center. and he wrote his first song. At age 11, he wrote his first opening number. During his time at Yale, he vaguely hoped to make a living writing musicals and "had no [other] career options"; towards that end, he avoided courses that would prepare him for a career in something more secure like law or medicine. and worked as a weekend receptionist for his old music school, Greenwich House. After playing Off-Broadway, the show transferred in July 2003 to Broadway's John Golden Theatre, where it proved both a critical and popular success, winning the 2004 Tony Award for Best Musical and earning Lopez and Marx the Tony Award for Best Original Score. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2004.
2005–2011: Career stardom
In 2005, Lopez began working on a new musical project with his musical partner Jeff Marx, and with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park,
In early 2006, Lopez collaborated with his brother, Billy, on several episodes of the Nickelodeon series Wonder Pets, for which they shared a Daytime Emmy award with the series' other composers and music director, Jeffrey Lesser, in 2008. In January 2007, a musical adaptation of the Disney/Pixar film Finding Nemo, which Lopez co-wrote with his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, opened at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park.
On January 18, 2007, Lopez and Marx again collaborated to write four of the songs for the hit TV show Scrubs on the show's 123rd episode titled "My Musical." TV Guide named the episode one of the best 100 TV show episodes of all time in 2009. Lopez, along with Jeff Marx, was recognized with an Emmy nomination for the song "Everything Comes Down to Poo" from the above-mentioned episode. Stephanie D'Abruzzo, who originated the roles of Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut in Avenue Q, guest-starred in the episode.
In April 2010, Lopez wrote the song "Bet Against the American Dream," which was featured on the NPR program This American Life. The song was written in the style of a Broadway show tune, and parodied a scene from the musical The Producers to illustrate the story of a real-life hedge fund called Magnetar that made millions of dollars when the housing market collapsed. On June 25, 2010, Lopez won his second Daytime Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for his work on The Wonder Pets! In 2011, Lopez again worked with Matt Stone and Trey Parker on the South Park episode "Broadway Bro Down.”
Lopez also co-wrote two songs for the Disney Channel animated series Phineas and Ferb: "Aerial Area Rug," for the episode "Magic Carpet Ride," and "Fly On the Wall," for the episode of the same name. Lopez composed a song for The Simpsons episode "A Totally Fun Thing That Bart Will Never Do Again" titled "Enjoy It While You Can" which aired on April 29, 2012.
2011–present: Continued success
Lopez and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez wrote seven songs for Winnie the Pooh, released in 2011 by Walt Disney Animation Studios. They also wrote an original song for Wreck-It Ralph that was cut from the finished film.
In 2013, Lopez and Anderson-Lopez wrote songs for Disney Animation's feature film Frozen. The song "Let It Go" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, making Lopez the 12th person to achieve the EGOT. On February 8, 2015, they won another Grammy for their work on Frozen for the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media for "Let It Go".
In development for several years by Lopez and Anderson-Lopez, their romantic-comedy musical Up Here debuted August 9, 2015, at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. Lopez describes Up Here as "It's kind of like Annie Hall meets Cirque du Soleil. It's a romantic comedy with a huge theatrical twist."
Lopez and his wife wrote the musical number "Moving Pictures" for the 87th Academy Awards.
It was announced in late 2015 that Lopez would be writing original songs for the revival of the cult comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Lopez and his wife were attached to write the music for the Disney film Gigantic, an animated retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk", but the film was shelved in October 2017.
The Disney/Pixar film Coco, released in November 2017, features Lopez and Anderson-Lopez's song "Remember Me". The song won the 2018 Academy Award for Best Original Song, making Lopez the first double EGOT winner. Lopez and Anderson-Lopez composed the theme music from the MCU show WandaVision, which premiered on Disney+ on January 15, 2021. They returned to write multiple versions of "The Ballad of the Witches’ Road" for the WandaVision spin-off Agatha All Along.
Personal life
right|thumb|Kristen and Robert Lopez interviewed on Dulce Osuna in 2019
During his participation in the 1999 BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, Robert Lopez met and began dating lyricist Kristen Anderson. As described in a 2003 The New York Times profile, the pair, struggling in a cash-strapped post-college period that recalls the storyline of Avenue Qs Princeton and Kate Monster, "live[d] in Astoria, Queens, [drove] a 1989 Buick and survive[d] on fast food".
The couple married in 2003 and their two daughters, Katie and Annie, had voice parts in Frozen, with Katie voicing 5-year-old Anna and Annie voicing a troll. they resided in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.
He is cousins with stand-up comedian Tim Dillon. In his youth, he was a Catholic, but in 2011 he called himself "sort of agnostic."
Work
Film
{| class="wikitable unsortable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
|2011 || Winnie the Pooh || Music and lyrics ||
|-
|2013 || Frozen || Music and lyrics ||
|-
|2015 || Frozen Fever || Music and lyrics || Short film
|-
|2017 || Coco || Music and lyrics ||
|-
|2019 || Frozen 2 || Story writer, music, and lyrics ||
|-
|}
Television
{| class="wikitable unsortable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! class="unsortable" | Episode
|-
|2006–08 || Wonder Pets! || Composer || 12 episodes
|-
|2007 || Scrubs || Music and lyrics || Episode: "My Musical"
|-
|2011 || Phineas and Ferb || Music and lyrics || Episode: "Magic Carpet Ride”
|-
|2011 || South Park || Music and lyrics || Episode: "Broadway Bro Down"
|-
|2017–22 || Mystery Science Theater 3000 || Writer || 2 episodes
|-
|2021 || WandaVision || Music and lyrics || 7 episodes
|-
|2021 || We the People || Songwriter ||
|-
|2022 || Central Park || Music and lyrics || Episode: "Castle Sweet Castle"
|-
|2023 || Up Here || Writer, executive producer, music, and lyrics ||
|-
|2024 || Agatha All Along || Lyrics || 9 episodes
|}
Theatre
{| class="wikitable unsortable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! class="unsortable" | Venue
|-
|2003 || Avenue Q || Music and lyrics || John Golden Theatre, Broadway
|-
|2006 || Finding Nemo – The Musical || Music and lyrics || Disney's Animal Kingdom
|-
|2011 || The Book of Mormon || Book, music, and lyrics || Eugene O'Neill Theatre, Broadway
|-
|2015 || Up Here || Book, music, and lyrics || La Jolla Playhouse