M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan
Manoj Shyamalan, known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-American film director, screenwriter, producer and occasional actor known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots. His major films include the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, the superhero drama thriller Unbreakable, the science fiction thriller Signs, the psychological thriller The Village, the fantasy thriller Lady in the Water, the natural thriller The Happening, the fantasy adventure film The Last Airbender, the sci-fi action-adventure film After Earth, the found-footage horror film...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth6 August 1970
CityMahe, India
CountryUnited States of America
My grandparents were classic Indian grandparents. My grandmother would put so much powder on her face that it was like a Kabuki play and she'd come down the stairs. I was like 8 or 9 years old. My grandfather apparently had no teeth because he would take out his teeth and put them in a glass, and then he would try to scare me with it. I started to try to scare them when I was a little older.
I've never had an issue with studios. I believe in them as true creative partners in the process.
I grew up watching Steven Spielberg and scary movies.
Movie making is not like other art forms, like painting, or writing a novel, because that can be digested or interpreted... It takes two years to make each one of these, and it's always judged on money.
I feel most akin as an artist, in my life and my career, to Agatha Christie.
That's something we should be taught as kids: To be okay with ourselves.
The thing that's protected me creatively is that the movies have made profits.
I don't like to chase an audience. You can smell when someone is chasing an audience and it's not good.
There's a monster outside my room, can I have a glass of water?
I offer originality: you don't know what my films are like until you go to them. I think that's the reason I've been getting all this attention.
'The Exorcist' is the scariest movie ever made. It just felt dead-on real, like you were watching the existence of the devil.
The first two movies I directed failed, when I was 21 and 23, and that was the greatest thing that could have happened.
I have a naive outlook on life. That's who I am.
For instance, 'The Sixth Sense' had mediocre to bad reviews. Slowly, the audience pushed it and it received critical attention.