Shyamalan: Emotion is something that I ... struggle with, because I'm an emotional guy. ... I'm definitely more emotional than the average Joe, you know? And so it just comes out. ... It's necessary in the making ... of movies. But it's something that I know is dangerous, dangerous territory. ... Because it's an intimate thing, you know? ... Like, if this is a date ... and I'm getting eight bucks to spend two hours with me, and I say, "Let's cry together." You're like, "F--k you," you know? You'll laugh with me, instantly. A stranger you'll laugh with, or ... even tell exciting stories with or any of that stuff. But to get to emotion is a very sacred place.
And so most filmmakers ... if it's art filmmakers, they avoid it, so that they can do the long, wide shot with the guy crying in the corner, so it's not emotional, and you watch it, and that way you haven't risked anything. ... Or you go to ... really, like, pandering stuff, where, you know, the ... puppy dog and things like that. And the music comes in to want to tell you this. ... And so the people that would cry, cry, and the other people are like, "OK, let's get back to the movie." ... So it's a very delicate balance, the emotional thing. And one that I had gone a little crazy with in my movie
Wide Awake [1998], ... it was emotional all the time.
And I had, like, a violent reaction from the critics and the audience. I didn't realize that they would like, say, compare me to bad movies. And I would say, "Gosh, they're not even seeing the difference between genuine emotion, like me saying something genuinely on the page and going on the screen and popping back, or someone who did it poorly." ... That's it. They're both really sappy movies.
And so I really pulled back on that on
Sixth Sense. And I said, "I'm not going to let myself get emotional until the car scene." At that point, you're all beaten down, and now you're with me, and ... you're right there with me, you're ready to get emotional. ... So, that's when I let myself go.
And then I was like, "Wow, that was really successful! You know what,
Unbreakable, I'm not going to have emotion at all! You know, that'll even be better." And I felt like, you know, somehow I didn't show a part of myself. ... There's a little bit of emotion there in
Unbreakable. Again, it's at the end, you know, in the scene where he tells his son that he's a superhero. ... He goes, "You were right." And then when he carries his wife upstairs. ... [It's] not as far as I would go, you know?
So
Signs is a little bit of coming back home to emotion. ... This is as emotional as big movies get. ... I felt more courage to go right to the line and stop. Find where that line is, and have courage, rather than being so scared of it.
In this film, you also do some of the same things you do in the previous film, with color and sound design and glass imagery.Shyamalan: Well, the color design was something that I didn't get to do as predominantly as I wanted to. The main color design idea didn't quite make it through in the movies. Which was, that the color of her dress, the mother [Patricia Kalember], is basically this kind of this bluish-purple color. It's like a very cool ... not violet, but it's a very powerful color. And you see it on the dress form there. And we had it pop in different places throughout. .... She used to be in two other flashbacks, and you see her in that color. And when you pan around the room at the end of the movie, you know, the room has those colors, and the quilt has those colors. And just a sense of everybody being touched by her, the remnants of her. We never quite got our handle on it, because it's more subtle than the pop of red in
Sixth Sense and obviously the carnival colors in
Unbreakable. But it was on my mind. ... It was hard to, because if something comes out, like the two flashbacks of the wife earlier, now you're really subtle, and so you're not getting that impact that was originally [intended].
The sound design was crucial, something we struggled with. ... As opposed to laser guns or something in [
Star Wars:]
Episode II, [it's] ... just like dialogue, using it just like dialogue, to tell the story. It's my special effects for 90 percent of the movie. And so it was very, very important. So we went through 100 chime sounds 'til we got the ones that had, like, a combination church-chime feeling. Because that was supposed to be a metaphor for the spirituality: Something's coming. And ... the creaks around the room, as they're watching the creaks go around the room. ... Moans that we had in there.
[Warning: Spoilers ahead.] And also the language of the creatures, which eventually, finally became about clicking. Like an African tribal clicking. Where they were saying, "Go to the right, go to the left." Because that instantly tells you: primitive, intelligent. And the primitive part is threatening, you know what I mean? But the intelligent part is even more threatening. ... They're doing something around you, you know, clicking and saying that, but you have no idea. As opposed to "AAAAAHHH." Which is like, OK, obviously ... they want to eat us, so let's do this. As opposed to, they have a game plan.
You also use music sparingly in the movie.Shyamalan: James [Newton Howard] just killed [with] the score. I don't know what you guys thought, but he just killed the score for me. I was going to originally have ... hardly any music in it. And then ... we came up with this idea of doing old-school scoring, which is on top. A lot of times when you have music, most music now is underneath. ... It's supposed to support. And then when it's done poorly, it peeks through, and you're like, "Oh, I feel a guy trying to make me feel emotional. Oh, I'm supposed to be scared." ... But the idea of this music, it was supposed to be up here, on top, so like on the credits, it's like [sings loudly], like big and bold and let's have fun. ... And basically kind of playing with the ... sci-fi genre. ... Basically, [we] wanted to get [back] to the [intensity of the music in the] opening credits again. Start building back to the opening credits, so that it would be [sings]: That is panic for him. That's what panic feels like. ... And we have to get back there. So when he turns around [at the end], ... that music comes back again. And then turns ethereal.
I'd say so. It wasn't like, let me do ... my version of it. ... I keep in mind ... that Orson Welles radio play. To see this woman doing the dishes and stopping the dishes, and she has that little apron and wipes her hands on the apron, and she comes towards the radio. And then that pang, what she feels: That's what I wanted to make the movie about. That pang. And it seemed like in this day and age, with the media ... you instantly know everything about everything. And so what a great time to do this. You know what I mean? "This is happening in Mexico. This is happening in India." And this little family in Pennsylvania has experienced something like that, trying to connect everything.
Have you ever had an experience with UFOs?Shyamalan: Have I? Um, I was abducted twice. No, I'm just kidding [laughter]. On the second time they said, "Hire Mel Gibson." No, nothing to do with like this kind of stuff. I mean, you know, I just think it's fascinating. Maybe I had like a questionable ghost thing when I was a kid. But you know, you're a kid, and who knows? All my friends live in older houses. So it's always been the ghost. Everybody thought they had ghosts in their house in Philadelphia. "George Washington stayed here." "All these Civil War soldiers stayed here." So there's like trap doors in these houses, secret tunnels and all. So it's just part of the life over there. But no, not directly. But definitely, all of it fascinates me to the point of wondering. ... I'm skeptical, with a "please, someone, prove it to me" [attitude]. You know what I mean? I want someone to prove it to me. I mean, basically it's like, I guess it was Houdini's desire to "please show me, but don't fool me," because that's not going to help the situation.
Yeah. Only one has to be correct, right? You've got the hoaxers doing all the hoaxing and stuff like that. It can be duplicated. It's just like, it more like falls in line with those drawings, where are they, in Mexico? You know what I'm talking about? Those huge drawings on the sand and the pyramids. And all this stuff. Stonehenge. All these things, it's wonderful that some culture, somehow, somebody did this, these things. Either in the belief that there was someone up there looking down or in honor of them. Or some people think
they did it,
they orchestrated it. We can't even figure out how they moved the stones to Stonehenge. Nobody can figure out how they did that. You can't physically do it without machinery, and they didn't have machinery. ... So crop circles, because it was a universal phenomenon—it was in India, and England and all over—it felt like a really cool hook to get into the movie. We originally thought about opening it in the exact same way, but a family in India waking up, and then coming out and then the man ... turns into Mel Gibson, and he's in Pennsylvania, and he's looking there with his family at the crop circle in Pennsylvania.
This movie, like your other films, deals with faith.Shyamalan: I guess I just keep pounding away at this until I get it myself. Which is kind of a guy waking up to his potential and who he is and the things around him. So all three of those movies are this guy waking up. I don't know why, I just keep writing that guy. I could easily write another one about a guy waking up and realizing this. And then the supernatural or the sci-fi elements of the movie—the ghosts or the aliens—is kind of irrelevant to me. It's just a backdrop.
A man learning to believe again, ... believe in himself in
Unbreakable. Believe in love in
Sixth Sense and believe in himself as a therapist in
Sixth Sense, in his job. These are the things that I was dealing with at the time. Each one is a different thing. And in
Signs, it's basically this faith, believing in fate. Believing that ... [as] Joseph Campbell [said], "Take the adventure that's being offered to you. ... There will be guides to help you along the way, and if you refuse it, you will experience a negative adventure in the same way through your life." And in a way, that totally connects with me, that those guides he's talking about. ... It's there if you choose to see it.
This has happened to you?Shyamalan: We were in waiting for ... my grandparents to go back to India at JFK [Airport in New York]. We were sitting there. I was 13. I was bored. And the flight was delayed. I went into the bookstore. Spike Lee's books were there, [and] I picked it up. ... And got this book on
She's Gotta Have It. I was like, what is this? I don't know, picked it up. ... I remember that moment distinctly, feeling powerful.
Were you asked to write the script for Indiana Jones 4?Shyamalan: I was asked, but it didn't work out ... with everybody [George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford]. It was a tricky, tricky thing to get four of us together at the same time on the same page. ... It was just a tricky time. I didn't think it was the right thing for me to do. I mean it was, that's the movie that above everything I think has affected me.
Raiders [
of the Lost Ark] was kind of, like, hey, fulfillment of a childhood fantasy to kind of say, "God, I'll do that one," and ... in a way, ... an amazing circle would have come. But it didn't work out. ... I sat with each of them. Separately.
Why did you pick Mel Gibson for Signs?Shyamalan: He did
Lethal Weapon, which was just a very big moment for me in my life. I was on my parents' sofa watching the video of
Lethal Weapon, and then this guy did stuff emotionally that had no business being in an action movie. ... I completely believed the humanity of a man who was so torn by the loss of his wife that he wasn't afraid of dying, which made him a lethal weapon. And those steps were profound and made his entire career on the perfect note that he hit on that. And that when I wrote the movie about a guy who loses faith because his wife has passed away, I felt like that was the guy. And I also like taking an action guy and not letting him be The Guy. And then taking the dramatic guy [Joaquin Phoenix] and making him be the action guy, making them switch hats. ... It was fun.
Mel Gibson, you're an Oscar-winning director yourself. Was it a different experience receiving direction from someone who might have pushed you to do more or bigger things than you were doing as an actor? Gibson: Not totally. But I think in many cases, he's ... kind of like the truth police, so he's very honest. Like if he doesn't get exactly what he wants, he'll come and tell you. And a couple of times he got stuff that he hadn't necessarily planned for, but he said, "You know, I don't mind that either. That's good." But he's very into precision. And any extraneous movement that might arise from either bad habits or discomfort in a situation for myself, he would be quick to pounce on. It was mainly just censuring me.
Can you give us an example of that?Gibson: "Hey, you moved your left eyebrow." I would be like, "What?" And it was just some weird little close-up body language thing that was like not happening for him. And, hey, his vision. His script. Good script. He's a great director. ... I think artistic respect is to tell each other the truth. And he would just come in and say, "Not like that. Like this." And he would explain it. He wouldn't give you line readings and stuff, but we would have debates. But we get to it pretty quick. He's a good communicator.
Night has very set ideas about what moves an audience. How did your discussions go about what you think scares an audience and about his vision?Gibson: Well, we spoke a lot. There was a lot of analysis done on the kind of story we were trying to tell. After all, if you're his quarterback, he's going to tell you the game plan. So there was necessarily very much discussion about all aspects of what he wanted from the film. I'd even ask him about shots: "Hey, what are you trying to do with it?" ... It was mainly about me acquainting myself with his vision, which [is] what I'm paid to do. And execute it the way he would have it.
In your own life, which ones do you believe in? Signs, miracles, luck or coincidence?Gibson: I think there have been many experiences in my life [that were] unexplainable also. Where you couldn't rule out the idea of some supernatural or otherworldly kind of influence playing a part in the road you choose or in forcing you to go that way. ... I don't really think it's about luck. I think most things are preordained. And I've always thought that, so that's OK.
Night has described this film as an emotional take on a sci-fi movie. Do you agree? And how would you describe it?Gibson: It's hard to give it a log line. ... The first way he explained it—and it was really from my character's point of view—he said it's about a man who loses his faith and gets it back again. And I said, "Oh, that sounds pretty simple." But the machinations of the things that occur in order for that to happen are fairly complex. Even though he approached it ... in a simple way, it was still complex. And it's like a thriller, I think. A sci-fi thriller, with a very human element. ... The human element is, oddly enough, the spiritual element. Because I think all of us have some instinctive thing within us that kind of wants to reach for a higher place, that has a suspicion that there is a nature and a higher realm outside ourselves that exists and perhaps influences who we are and why we're here. And we all ask that question: "Why the hell am I here?" So ... the human nature of it is the questioning of that, which I think he gave us in a big dose here.
No. ... I kind of figured he knew where he wanted to go. ... I didn't want to be the boring guy sort of back-seat driving him. But I do remember commenting [after shooting several takes of the scene], I said, "[It's] take five." Like that. And I think he watched it back after and said, "You're right. It was take five." But it's very much easier to be totally objective and aware when you're the eyes outside watching it. And I think he actually said something afterwards, like, "Oh God," he said, "now I know how you feel [as an actor]." But he was very good.
What was it like working with the kids in the film, Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin? They were really good.Gibson: Yeah, terrific kids. The kids are getting smarter every year. I don't know, they must be feeding them on something else. You got to pull your socks up to keep up with them. W.C. Fields worked well with kids. I find that a similar halfway approach kind of works. I think we have outtakes with me beating up Abby. And she took the hits well [laughs].
Can you talk about pulling practical jokes on the set?Gibson: There weren't too many big practical jokes. Wow. And Joaquin was ripe for practical jokes, but I had mercy on him.
He had mentioned something about Vaseline in his trailer. Can you talk about that?Gibson: [Laughs.] Well, I don't remember a thing about it. What does he mean? I think it was already there. Was it on his door handle? [Laughs again.]
And he was locked up in the closet during one scene?Gibson: Oh, that was funny. Yeah, that was funny. He was in a closet, and he was doing his take, and everybody just turned off the lights and left the set. And it was amazing, because he knew what had happened from within the closet, and he was adamant that he was going to win, and he wasn't coming out. He was not coming out until we all came back and acknowledged that he was still in there. And he just sat in there, and there's a very funny audio tape of the things he said for about 15 minutes when he sat in there. And it said, "I know you're out there." And like talking about getting his lawyers. It was pretty funny. But he actually won. He won. I had to admire his tenacity.
The film started production a few days after Sept. 11. Did that affect the production at all?Gibson: Well, there was a stunned reaction from everyone. No one could quite believe it. So I think everyone was a little bit in a state of shock. ... We only realized it in retrospect. But it's odd. ... I don't mean to be mercenary about this, but the character that I played, when I thought about him, he was a guy who was kind of in a state of shock, or [at] the beginnings of a breakdown, and had this exterior on the top of it. We had a, like, a candlelight moment of silence before we started shooting. And Cherry Jones had just come from New York. And she was really reeling. She had been right there. I don't believe she lived too far away from it. Well, no one in Manhattan did. But one really got a sense of it. ... From her arrival, she was completely in a state of shock. And it somehow translated to her performance. I mean ... there's no escaping that pall that came over all of us. I think it was there. It was part of us.
Could you give us an anecdote that illustrates Night's determination?Gibson: He explained to me how the script for
Signs evolved. And he said he made
The Sixth Sense, and he really enjoyed the experience. ... I mean, I dug it. And then he did
Unbreakable. And he said he wasn't quite as happy with that one personally as he was with the first, and he was sort of scratching his head one day, and he was sitting in Denny's ... and he watched this family come in and go to the smorgasbord, and they were all eating and laughing and having a great old time. And ... he observed them for a while. ... And he said ... "Oh, I know why I wasn't as happy with
Unbreakable as I was with
The Sixth Sense. I forgot about those people there." He said, "I want to make a film for those people." Those people he saw eating at the Denny's or something. Pancakes for like $5.99 or whatever. He said that
Signs was the result of making that film for everybody, I mean, the parents and the kids and everybody. ... So that was his way of wanting to unite himself to the human experience and tell a story that was universal and felt by anyone who cared to watch, and that would touch anyone that cared to watch. And these are the earmarks ... of a great filmmaker, I think, because the desire to demonstrate, to display, not for vanity, but to simply to make great art that is communicable and that everyone can enjoy in a vicarious way and not to be in the slightest bit elitist about it. And I think he did it.
