Composer Kept His ‘Eyes on the Prize’

“No matter how hopeless the situation, you can’t give up,” says composer Harry Stewart, 27, until recently a member of New York City’s homeless community.

Stewart was in the right place--a New York City subway station--at the right time . . . when director Peter Weir was looking for street musicians to provide music for his current movie, “Green Card.”

Stewart got the job--and his life changed.

Not only was he paid well for composing and performing his spirited song “Eyes on the Prize”--which Touchstone has submitted for Oscar consideration--Stewart is currently cleaning up some bad habits in a Phoenix rehab center.

The “beautiful, haunting” voices that Weir says he heard in the subway were those of Stewart and his Emmaus The Group singers, which Stewart had organized while living at Harlem’s Emmaus House for the homeless.

After Stewart inquired about the film’s storyline--a man and woman pretend to be married for individual reasons, then fall in love--he composed the song especially for the film. Then he surprised Weir with it when the group auditioned in Central Park.

As soon as he heard it, Weir says, he knew he wanted it--as a parable for the seemingly insurmountable obstacles faced by the film’s two main characters, played by Gerard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell.

“The song throws the message to the audience to keep your eyes on the prize,” Weir says. “There’s a lot of hopelessness in the world. . . . Yes, it’s just a movie, but it gives you hope.”

Before his lucky break, Stewart says, he was “throwing his faith away,” a lyric from another of his songs. “That’s what I was doing. I became homeless and I stayed that way because of an addiction to drugs.

“I got the inspiration from seeing the homeless. If I encourage one person who is homeless, then I’ve done something.”