Interviewee: M. Night Shyamalan
Interviewers: Mark Dimartino, Bryan Konietzko
Date: March 6, 2008

Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan — M. Night Shyamalan to legions of fans — is the Academy Award nominated director of such films as The Sixth Sense and Signs.

Though born in Pondicherry, India, M. Night Shyamalan grew up in Philadelphia, USA, where he has been based since. His parents, a cardiologist and an obstetrician, prepped him for a career in medicine.

When he was eight, M. Night Shyamalan received a Super-8 camera from his parents. He would use it constantly, filming family and friends. By age 17, he had made 45 amateur short movies.

Defying his parents’ wishes, M. Night Shyamalan turned down scholarships to medical schools and enrolled at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Nicknamed by his classmates as “Night,” M. Night Shyamalan released his first full-length film, Praying with Anger, in 1992, around his graduation. Two years later, FOX bought one of his screenplays, Labor of Love, for $750,000, but it has yet to be adapted for the big screen.

Eventually, he landed a contract with Miramax to shoot one of his screenplays, which became 1998’s Wide Awake. Despite the film’s tepid reception, Disney producers gambled on The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan’s screenplay about a boy who communicates with ghosts.

Its resulting movie, also directed by Shyamalan, has become a Hollywood classic. Released in 1999, The Sixth Sense toppled all other films that year except for Star Wars: the Phantom Menace. Critics fawned over the film enough to give it Academy Award nominations for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay among others.

Less people trooped to see M. Night Shyamalan’s sophomore suspense effort, Unbreakable, but he made up for it with 2002’s Signs. A global blockbuster, the film was his thrilling vision of an alien invasion in rural Pennsylvania.

With 2004’s The Village, M. Night Shyamalan started alienating critics and audiences. Nevertheless, the movie scored bigger box-office receipts than Unbreakable.

Lady in the Water and The Happening succeeded it in 2006 and 2008, respectively. Diverging from familiar material, M. Shyamalan has directed the live-action version of the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is set for a 2010 theatrical release.

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