M. Night Shyamalan Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions

Hi, I'm M Night Shyamalan,

and this is [keyboard typing]

the Wired Autocomplete Interview.

[upbeat music]

There is no moratorium on when do you tell

the end of the movie, you don't ever, ever tell them.

[upbeat music]

What M Night, all right, let's see what it says.

What does the M stand for in M Night?

It stands for Manoj, which is a very common name in India.

It's not quite as common as Michael or something here,

but it's pretty common.

Everyone would mangle it in school.

They'd call me mango or a million things.

And so it kind of abbreviated to M eventually.

What was M Night Shyamalan's

first movie?

It's a feature called Praying With Anger

and we shot it in India.

I was 21 years old and we kind of did it

the kind of classic way, you know,

friends and family, and borrowed,

and did everything we could.

And there was one moment that I remember

where I was really down and I was,

you know, didn't know what I was doing.

And the sound guy came over, the Indian sound guy, and said,

You remind me of Steven Spielberg

when he came and he shot 'Close Encounters'.

And I was like, that like pumped me up.

And, you know, it's just words of encouragement,

but it felt like he had ordained me to be something special

or something 'cause he used the word Steven Spielberg,

who was like a God to me.

So it really, it made a difference and I got all excited.

And then we finished the movie.

What is the M Night Shyamalan

trilogy?

Ah, well, I don't really do sequels.

So this was really kind of a one-off thing in my life.

When I thought of the story of Unbreakable,

it was really complicated and very long.

And then I realized, hey,

I won't be able to make this in one movie.

Maybe I can put it into multiple pieces.

So I made Unbreakable as the first movie of that,

and hoped that I would make the other two.

And then, to be honest,

I was kind of down about the reaction

Unbreakable when it came out.

So I said, Ah, you know, I'll go make other movies.

And I went and made Signs and The village

and all that stuff.

And then many, many years later, I went,

Hey, you know what?

I think I should come back and make the second movie

of the trilogy, which was Split.

And then, I finally made Glass.

So I was super lucky to get to finish the trilogy

in this kind of weird and interesting way.

What is M Night Shyamalan working on?

I'm releasing Old and I'm doing all the press for Old,

but at the same time, I'm writing this new movie.

It's actually a book that I optioned and I'm adapting it.

I'm about halfway through.

To be exact, I'm on page 54 of the first draft.

It's sitting there right now.

It's actually, I can feel the moment that I'm on,

and I'm a little, you know, what's gonna happen next?

I know what the character just said.

And something really bad is about to happen

right after page 54, so I'm preparing how to execute it.

But that's what I'm working on right now.

What does Jim say M Night Shyamalan?

I don't even understand that.

What does that mean?

What does Jim say M Night Shyamalan?

This is from The Office?

I don't currently reside in Scranton

or in an apartment building in Scranton,

if that's really what this question is.

Is M Night Shyamalan in 'Unbreakable'?

Yes, I play a drug dealer in Unbreakable,

if you look carefully,

and my family are all doctors,

and I still stayed in the medical field.

So you see, that works out great.

Is M Night Shyamalan in 'The Sixth Sense'?

Yes, I play a doctor, see, you see the themes here?

Is M Night Shyamalan in 'Signs'?

Yes, I had no medical connection in Signs, my character,

but this was one of the bigger parts

that I played in Signs.

I play kind of the person that's involved

in the death of the family member in Signs.

And one of the fun memories I have is trying to do

this really emotional scene in Signs.

And Mel Gibson is acting across from me,

and he's the least serious human being.

And he would, he started doing off-camera his lines

as if he was Sean Connery, so in a Scottish accent.

And I'm like, the tears started to just drive right back up.

And I was like, Mel, I don't know how to do this.

I was feeling emotional and now I don't feel,

and he's laughing, I'm like, I'm not you.

I don't know how to do this, so now I'm angry at you.

So now, that's what you got, you got angry at you.

But it turned out fine, and we used take five,

which he knew was the best thing.

Is M Night Shyamalan in 'Split'?

I am not in Split.

I don't think I am. [bell dinging]

Is M Night Shyamalan in 'The Village'?

Yes, a very small cameo towards the end

you kind of see me with a hat,

and in a reflection at the end of it,

if you haven't seen it.

Is M Night Shyamalan in 'Always Sunny'?

I don't think I am in it,

but I think they've referenced me in the show.

You know, if they want a cameo, we can do it for real,

but I know there was a whole episode where they were trying

to get into one of my movies.

They're so sweet.

And what a great show that is, by the way.

How M Night Shyamalan, okay.

How,

how old is M Night Shyamalan?

What a great question.

At this time, I'm actually 50 years old,

big birthday for me.

So I'm very excited and we're gonna have some friends over,

and all of that stuff.

How tall is M Night Shyamalan?

I'm like that, I'm that height where guys

always lie about their height, you know?

It's like you're close enough to six foot.

Yeah, I am six foot-ish.

Everybody that's just right below six foot always goes,

I'm six, I don't know,

and they pretend like they don't even know exactly.

You know, like we haven't obsessively measured ourselves

constantly to get to six foot,

probably more like five 10 to five 10 and a half,

something that, but who is measuring, really?

How did M Night Shyamalan

get his start?

The moment I think that the industry

started paying attention to me is when I wrote a script

that no one paid me to write called Labor of Love.

And everyone bid on it, all the studios bid on it.

And I was living in my parents' guest room.

And there was no cellphones at that time.

So you're getting all these phone calls saying,

They offered $200,000, I was like, $200,000, what?

I'm in my parents' guest room,

by the way, it was my sister's old room which was pink,

just to add to the drama of it all.

And so I'm in the pink room,

and then they're like, 250, 300, Fox offered 400!

New Line Cinema offered 500.

And I was like, What?

And finally, I sold it to Fox.

Ironically, after I sold it,

and I was pretty young and I hadn't done anything,

they actually fired me as director.

So it was very sad, a sad conclusion of that thing.

But I did have enough money to go get

a little home after that.

Me and my wife, we were just married, we moved out.

So that was really the beginning.

I was hired off of that to write Stuart Little.

And I became known as a writer,

I think first, in the industry.

How to contact M Night Shyamalan?

Well, I'll tell you how not to.

You don't throw things over my gate to, you know, packages.

You don't leave things on my car.

Don't do any of that, don't do any of that.

I'm on social media and you can try to reach out,

which I don't get to read everything, but sometimes,

messages really touch me and I respond.

So, and don't reach out to my parents

'cause they're always like,

This person stopped by the house.

And I was like, Mom, don't, don't,

you know, They gave me this.

I'm like, Mom, just don't answer it.

Bryce Dallas Howard M Night Shyamalan.

Wow, so this is just a kind of a word association,

is that what this is?

So Bryce,

I saw in a play off-Broadway.

She was in a Shakespeare play.

I think it was As You Like It.

And so taken with her,

and I was writing The Village at the time.

So it was kind of a period piece.

And I remember going to see her in New York

and just knew the second that the show was over

that I'd found who I wanted to be the lead.

So I went to lunch with her and I said,

Hey, I'm gonna do this movie.

And I handed her the script and it was really sweet.

Where M Night Shyamalan, let's see.

Where did M Night Shyamalan grow up?

I grew up outside Philadelphia in the suburbs

of a place called Penn Valley.

It was almost like being in a Spielberg suburban movie.

We were all on our bikes riding around the neighborhood

every night after school.

And then, try to get everybody, ring the doorbell.

Can Joey play, can this person play?

And then, we'd ride around and have adventures.

And then, have to go home and go eat and do our homework.

Where did M Night Shyamalan go to high school?

I went to Episcopal Academy, which is outside Philly.

That school had just become co-ed a few years before.

So there were girls, and this was the first time

that I actually went to school with girls.

So it was a very

distracting time for me.

Those of you that have Indian immigrant parents,

you know what I'm saying, very restricted.

And then, go to school with girls,

and they're just sitting right next to you,

and the pretty girls over there,

and very hard to learn algebra under those conditions.

Where does M Night Shyamalan live?

I live outside Philly.

We consider ourselves Philadelphians,

even though we're right outside Philadelphia.

We've been going to Philly every week.

And that city is very, very dear to me,

and protect it, you know, with everything.

Where is

M Night Shyamalan now?

Is that an existential question or a literal question?

I'm gonna answer it existentially.

I'm at the place where I wanna make

the most distinct pieces of art

for the largest audience.

I want the pieces to have teeth.

I want them to be challenging.

And I want them to represent me.

And I have the belief that the more distinct

and different they are,

the more they're gonna resonate with you guys over time.

This is obviously about the movie Signs.

Is 'Signs'

a religious movie?

Wow, that's a good question.

Most of my characters in my movies,

I think, it's about some belief system that I'm trying,

I personally am struggling with.

And because I went to, I'm not Catholic,

but I went to Catholic school for 10 years that,

you know, the form of a priest felt very,

very natural to me as somebody to kind of carry the load.

Whenever I talk about what the movie is about,

if it's about ghosts, or comic books,

or aliens, or you name it,

those are really just kind of the clothing

for a discussion about the crisis of faith.

So I know the kind of the theories on Signs

that the aliens represent inner demons,

it's accurate in the sense that all of them are, you know,

the comic book story is about you believing in yourself,

that David Dunn doesn't believe in himself.

And Signs is that same way about this world event,

and does this have meaning for you?

Are we just gonna get, you know, are we just food?

Is there meaning in everything?

And then, he finds meaning in this moment.

What was wrong with the dog in 'Signs' movie?

My mind was thinking that, you know,

as the aliens got closer and were nearby,

the animals would be becoming violent,

and irrational, and acting erratically,

and that that was one of the first indicators

that there was something around that was very threatening,

sending them into a certain type of place.

Something, something, something, something Signs.

Who played the alien in the movie 'Signs'?

Gosh, I'm forgetting the actor's name.

He's so wonderful, he was so giving.

I remember his energy and his kindness on set

of just the opposite of the alien.

He was very, very gracious and made us all feel

like we were doing kind of like a higher art form,

like ballet or something.

Yeah, a really wonderful man.

What does water symbolize in 'Signs' movie?

Water always has a kind of a special place

for me in my movies.

There's a kind of a sense of purity from it or rebirth.

It's often used that way in religious ceremonies.

My parents, and my mom especially,

who does a lot of Indian ceremonies,

they use water in this fashion,

and you see it a lot in different rituals.

You see it in a bunch of my movies, in Lady in the Water,

and now, I guess, in Old as well,

that kind of the proximity to water.

It feels like there's some magical property to it.

So it always made sense to me that that would be

the thing that burns off the demons, let's say.

All right, Sixth Sense.

What does the 'Titanic' and 'The Sixth Sense' have,

should I do this other line, in common?

They both have Leonardo DiCaprio.

No, they were both number one

for a very long time in the movie theaters.

I think Sixth Sense was either five or six weeks,

and Titanic was 10 weeks.

And since 'Titanic,'

I think these are the two movies that have been number one

in the movie theaters for the longest.

[Woman] It's a joke and it's, Icy dead people.

Ah, icy, that's funny, that's funny too.

[M Night laughing]

Is 'The Sixth Sense', let's see, what's this say?

Is 'The Sixth Sense' a three-act narrative?

Look at this film school.

I'm not sure, I don't, it's funny,

I don't really think like that,

but I'm sure it's true because what feels natural, right,

is that kind of the setup, the conflict,

and then, the kind of,

the escalation in that third act to the resolution,

I think my movies have a kind of,

it's by the nature of them because there's a revelation,

there's probably a fourth movement in them.

In those last moments in these movies

as you realize something or there's kind

of a revelation of some kind.

I don't know if that falls

into the three-act structure like that.

What are the clues in 'The Sixth Sense'?

Gosh, I'm sure there's many more

than I will think of off the top of my head,

but we use the color red to indicate

the other world nagging at him.

And I think him staring at the door knob,

of the things that were not right,

that his consciousness is not acknowledging

because he has to stay blind, essentially,

as he's walking through life a bit.

What's the twist in 'The Sixth Sense'?

Can't tell you that, I just, at this point,

if you haven't seen it, you just go watch it.

This is how you do it, you go and watch this movie,

and then, you find another person and you ask them

before you say anything, Have you seen it?

And then if they say yes,

then you can openly talk about it

away from others kind of situation, that's it.

That's it, there's no other way to talk about it, that's it.

Okay, plot twist.

[dramatic music]

It's been Bing all along. [bell dinging]