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on 2008/6/8 0:33:42
He is the man Newsweek Magazine declared as the next Spielberg. His name is synonymous with supernatural stories and twist in endings. You may or may not like his movies but there is no way you haven’t heard the line 'I see dead people'. It’s one of the most popular lines in the movie history and it is him who coined it. The guest on the show is the writer and director of the The Sixth Sense and the Signs, the India born Manoj Night Shyamalan.
Rajeev Masand: Welcome to the show. Welcome home!
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Thanks for having me.
Rajeev Masand:Your films are so steeped in supernatural and in the paranormal. This belief of yours in the paranormal is what you have inherited by being an Indian?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I think the idea of talking about things that we can’t see and the ability to believe in those things is very intrinsic to the Indian culture. My American friends believe only what they see. However, it is much easier for me to see what is there on the other side of the curtain. I can’t hear or see it but I know that there is something there.
Rajeev Masand: Did you have any supernatural paranormal experiences of your own?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Not really. I tend to be a little boring. So it’s my opportunity with movies to make things exciting in my life.
Rajeev Masand: Let us talk about your new film The Happening. It is much like the The Sixth Sense and Signs. It is really another film but the fear of the unknown. Isn’t it?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Out of the six movies that I made that everybody has seen are dark scary thrillers and variations of that in The Sixth Sense, Signs and The Happening. And then I made three movies that are outside that genre in the Unbreakable, The Village and the Lady in the Water. There are both sides of me that are equally very important. The Happening falls in a very scary thriller genre.
Rajeev Masand: There was a lot of public bashing that you took for Lady in the Water. Was it important for you to make the film that your fans wanted to see?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I don’t really think like that. Though I would love to do that. They are very organic in their thinking about what I am going to do. The Happening idea came before I finished the Lady in the water. It tends to be an answer to the previous movie in terms of totality. One is very innocent and sweet and the other one is very dark. So it’s very natural. It takes two years to make a movie.
Rajeev Masand: I am told the only poster on your wall of a film not directed by you is the Raiders of the lost Ark. Did the film have a huge impact on you and changed your life or something?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I’d say so. I was twelve. I went along with a friend to see the movie. I was very angry, as I did not want to watch the film. I did not even know what archaeology was. My friend and me sat separately. I was not interested at all and I sat there with my jaw hung there and that’s when I decided that I wanted to do that. I wanted to make movies like that for a living.
Rajeev Masand: I know Spielberg and Lucas came to you to write the fourth film. Why did that not happen?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Every time you do a film, there is a combination of things like is it the right time in your life, is it the right opportunity, and I so badly wanted to do that movie but I was finishing Unbreakable and I said that this is not going to work out right now. So I bowed out.
Rajeev Masand: You are one among few filmmakers who writes his own material. Do you think people attach enough importance to originality in this business?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: Originality is dangerous. If you succeed in one, why would you not do seven more of those and be safer. It is moneymaking venture. The combination of originality and money making venture do not sit well together.
Rajeev Masand: I remember meeting you in New York shortly after you completed The Village and I remember you saying that you were keen on adapting the Life of Pi. And I also remember you saying that one of your concerns was whether the studio would green light a film whose lead is a non white actor. Was that why it fell through?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: No. In fact the movies sell because it is not caste depended. Life of a Pi would have been a wonderful combination. It was again the timing. It was a bestseller work and they wanted a decision at that moment and I said if that’s what you area asking. I can’t do it right now but I would love to do in the future.
Rajeev Masand: Your parents are both doctors and you started out training to be one.
Manoj Night Shyamalan: I would not say that because I went to a film school at the NYU. It was an assumption I guess, because if you are good in academics and you have Indian parents who are doctors, and then the doors are opened...
Rajeev Masand: Were they horrified when you announced that you are going to be a film maker.
Manoj Night Shyamalan: They were very disappointed. Lets just put it that way. They are not big yellers.
Rajeev Masand: When was it the first time that they began to take it seriously?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: That was two months ago when I got the Padmashree. That was the moment I think they said that it is good and that they were okay.
Rajeev Masand: It is funny that with The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis loved the script but was not sure if he wanted you to direct it?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: You have to ask him. I do not remember it that way. But I was younger then!
Rajeev Masand: Who are some of the filmmakers who have influenced you greatly?
Manoj Night Shyamalan: There are so many. Spielberg of course. He is like the guru. And then Hitchcock, Stanley coolberk are among the others. His minimalising is very beautiful. Another Japanese filmmaker too has influenced me a lot. Their style has influenced me a lot.
Rajeev Masand: You don’t speak much about your daughters. You have two girls. Does your work resonate with them? Do they respond to your movies?
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