We talk with M. Night Shyamalan about preparing the shocks in store for his fans in Split.
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Den of Geekgot on the phone with Shyamalan a couple weeks back.
Den of Geek: What started you down the road to making this?
Sometimes you just wait.
I have a notebook full of ideas and wait for it to go click.
Was this an idea you had forgotten about?
Then I was like, You know what?
I like this order, goingThe VisittoSplit,so it felt like getting bigger as you go.
When I first heard that you were working with Jason Blum, I thought that was interesting.
Jason is my advisor to help out and say, I was thinking about doing this.
What do you think about that?
I like his taste as a producer, and I like his demeanor.
He just makes me feel calm through everything.
Did you build it to be very much like what it looks like in the movie?
I had never met James and been an admirer.
LikeLast King of Scotland, I love that movie.
His head had been shaved forX-Men, but it has grown back, and so it was like stubble.
I thought of him, but he was unavailable originally, and then he became available.
Thats how much it affected me.
We found a picture of him at Comic-Con and then shaved it back to that length.
Thats kind of mean.
The discussions Kevin has with Betty Buckley as his psychiatrist Dr. Fletcher seem very authentic and true.
So how much research did you actually do into DID to ensure that it was accurate?
My wife is actually a psychologist, so its definitely a field that I love.
I asked a lot of questions: What if your patient did this?
What if your client did this?
What happens with that?
What do you do then?
Do you have a feeling like do you ever feel scared?
Dah, dah, dah, dah.
Its amazing to me that people still think that people with split personalities are faking it.
Yeah, they definitely think its a controversial condition.
People still dont 100 percent believe this disorder.
I think a lot of it goes undiagnosed.
Hopefully that will be part of the conversation when people see the movie.
But actually, youve been doing that from the very beginning by having Toni Collette inThe Sixth Sense.
Can you talk about casting around James?
Yes, she was.
I dont think of them as genre movies.
I think of them as dramas that happen to be scary or thrilling or that have those aspects.
They were just so wonderful together.
Just in how she is different from everybody.
Anya Taylor-Joy just came in and did this audition.
Id never heard of her.
In my mind shed never been in anything, and then I was like, This girl is amazing.
Then she came in and she read again, and I was like, You got the part.
Then she was like, Oh, I was in a movie calledThe Witch.
I was like, Oh, that sounds interesting.
Maybe Ill go see that.
I was like, Wow, this is fantastic.
It was one of my three favorite horror movies of that year.
The Witchseems like something you might be into, so Im surprised you hadnt seen it before casting Anya.
After the movie played at Sundance, she really blew up and was getting a lot of roles.
I dont know if I saw her before or after the Sundance thing.
but she won my part just as an actress.
I dont know aboutMorganand how that happened, but sometimes it just happens like that.
Theyre just in that headspace, that kind of magic headspace in which the camera just eats them up.
I loved her reactions to Kevins different identities.
Were there any surprises, or did they always know what was going to happen?
I was curious about that.
Last year,10 Cloverfield Lanecame out, which was a very different movie, but it also involved an abduction.
Really the movie is about James character.
I knew I had that.
I dont remember if I felt that.
Thats not what its about; its really about their relationship to each other.
Youve been playing more in the TV realm withWayward Pines, and youre doing a newTales from the Cryptshow.
Whats it been like working in that realm?
I feel like TV is where all the money is these days.
Have you found new ways to be creative in that realm?
Ive really enjoyed my time in TV so far, and its been kind of invigorating.
I couldnt tell you how many positive relationships Ive had coming out of the TV experiences that Ive had.
Its kind of a lonely profession being a film writer/director, and this is the opposite of that.
You interact with a lot of people.
I enjoy being around people, so this is fulfilling another side of me, which is great.
I do think it invigorates me.
I have spoken to many writer/directors who eventually get sick of waiting the three years to write something.
I would love if someone would hand me a script and Im like, Im in.
I would love it if that happened, but its such idiosyncratic taste.
Sometimes it feels like only if you customize it.
I do feel that kind of, I wish I could write more.
Thats helping, you know?
But it makes it so you could move and be a certain key in of person.
Then by the end of the process, youre a different throw in of person.
You want to tell a different story.
How hasCryptbeen going and how far along are you?
Have you started to find directors and actually shoot stuff?
Were still figuring out the whole rights thing.
My editor wanted me to ask you about your planned sequel toUnbreakable.
Is that something youve spent a lot of time considering?
I will say I dont know how to answer that right now.
I definitely have always thought about finishing that story, and so its top of my mind.
Related: Interview with James McAvoy
