For this prodigiously talented 36-year-old filmmaker, the beat remains the same. “I make independent movies that get released as blockbusters,” he maintains during a recent interview session. And as Shyamalan explains it, with Lady in the Water he has chosen to deliberately mimic the manic way he tells bedtime stories to his two young daughters in their suburban Philadelphia home.
Q: In Lady in the Water, you once again have characters walking a fine line between reality and perceived insanity. How do you make that conceit work?
A: You have to be right on the edge of a language that feels like you’re almost letting go, like you’re almost tipping. There’s a certain mania about it. When I told the story to my girls, it was the same as it always is when I tell them stories, which is: you don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s a dangerous and wonderful feeling.
Literally, I go, “Should we tell a story?” and they go, “Yeah,” and I say, “What should I tell about?” and they say, “About this glass,” and I go, “OK, there’s this man that blows glass. And one day, he was really sad, so when he blew the glass, it became a different color…” I literally just made that up as I was talking about this glass, and we would start going for another half an hour, and I don’t know where that’s going, but it will end up in this amazing place.
There’s this mania that happens, because I keep on talking and I’m like, “I don’t know where I’m going,” and the girls can tell I don’t know where I’m going, and they suddenly go, “Ohh!” and we all discover it at the same moment. That was how I wanted to make this movie.
[Click here for the rest at Fandango] – Thanks to Mike for the tip!