The creator of the Insidious franchise on directing a movie himself and more.

WithInsidious: Chapter 3slated to go, Whannell not only wrote the movie but made it his directorial debut.

Den Of Geek: Im going to give you a multiple choice question.

It doesnt belong to any other world.

Ill start from scratch.

What happened what it was during the writing that I started to become very possessive of the characters.

So that was when I made the decision to direct it.

But it wasnt really to protect the mythology.

I think Ive had a lot of experience with watching other people shepherd my ideas with theSawfilms.

They made fourSawmovies without me.

I never really had a protective or fierce policy towards that.

I let it go.

I think it was mainly that the script kinda spoke to me.

Thats really what led to it.

So it was a natural evolution that you wanted to direct at some point?

I mean I met James Wan at film school.

Thats where we met.

I didnt go to film school to find someone else to work with.

But I think directing this movie was a reminder that this is what I wanted to do.

So I feel like it was something I was going to get to one day.

I just didnt know what the product was going to be, what the script was going to be.

I had the luxury and the cushioning of knowing that this franchise had already connected with people.

So all I had to do was not fuck it up totally.

But I also took it very seriously.

I really tried to treat it like it was a standalone film.

What did you learn about yourself as a director and about the craft of directing?

Obviously you know your way around a film set and youve been there enough to know how it works.

But what did you learn actually stepping into that role for the first time?

I learned that it really is an extension of writing.

When you sit down to write a film, you direct it in your head.

If you are writing a scene, you are watching the scene.

But films are only consumed one way through the eyes and the ears.

So when I write, I very much direct.

Otherwise, it would become very frustrating.

A lot of screenwriters talk about how frustrating it is to watch someone else make these decisions.

Lets not have her in any bright colors.

Lets have her in something really dark.

And the costume designers really respond to that.

They want to be told what the emotion of the scene is.

I was really surprised by that.

I feel like its much more creative and much more left-brained than that.

Were you concerned about navigating the challenges of doing a prequel?

Because the problem is always that we know what is going to happen at some point.

I was concerned about it in the sense that it was a blank slate, new family.

I had to approach it as if none of these events had happened before.

And now heres where we are this week, kids.

When you are doing a prequel, you dont have that.

You are building from the ground up.

So that was a little nerve racking.

But whats freeing about it is you arent constrained by anything.

So if you suddenly have a hair-brained idea to do this or that, you are not hemmed in.

At least if you are making a prequel you could say, Well, hes no James Bond yet.

Hes just a teenager.

Theres your idea for the next franchise: James Bond as a teenager (laughs).

That is quite freeing, I think.

That is quite freeing to not be constrained by that.

So its kind of a give and take.

Were you surprised at how much Elise sort of jumped out and become the lead character?

Did Elise leap at you the same way when you first created the character?

And how much did Lin help in giving her life?

I really liked the character on the page.

What happened on set is Lin came and she brought her Lin Shaye energy.

Shes such an effervescent person.

She brought this energy.

Its one of the great things about filmmaking, is the fact that other people take ownership of it.

Look at Star Wars fans.

In their minds, they are now the bosses of that franchise.

So, in the Insidious world, I found the fans of the film connected with Elise despite us.

We werent intending for her to be the star of the franchise, but something just clicked.

And Im so grateful to her for her input into the character.

I think there are some directors who are so controlling that they see actors as warm props.

The actor is in the same category as this coffee table that the production designer picked out.

Care to name names?

(Laughs) Exactly!

I think Alfred Hitchcock has a quote about the actors being treated like cattle.

Whereas, when youve acted before, you know exactly how an actor approaches a film set.

I wasnt trying to puppeteer them to give me exactly what I wanted.

The trick was giving them a trigger word that would trigger their contribution.

Rather than saying, Say it like this, which is the death for any actor.

I mean any actor hates line readings.

I would give them a song.

I would say to Dermot Mulroney, Can you listen to this song for a scene?

I wasnt sure what he was going to react to.

And I wouldnt ask him what he thought of the song.

I just wanted him to go into the scene with something to grab onto.

I think that was probably the best benefit of being an actor.

Your next project may be a science fiction film youve written calledStem?

I have written a film calledStem.

I wrote it a couple of years ago.

Im not sure it will be a film Ill direct.

But I really love the idea.

I actually wrote it a few years ago and wasnt even thinking of directing it.

But its been one of those scripts that floats around.

So yeah, Im excited.

Im going through a real sci-fi phase, especially contained sci-fi.

you’re able to say they are low budget movies with big ideas, like the originalTerminator.

Id love to make something in that vein.

Insidious: Chapter 3is out in theaters this Friday (June 5).