James Wan and Leigh Whannell: Interview

Interview by Clint Morris

Interview with actor and director James Wan and Leigh Whannell
Starring/directing in the movie Saw.

Leigh Whannell appearing in his new movie Saw

If there's one thing you can say about Aussie-born filmmakers Leigh Whannell and James Wan - who've just hit the big time, first time out of the gate, with a U.S horror smash called Saw - is that they were clearly unprepared for such instant success.

The former RMIT students explain that it's all a pretty big rush in La La Land for them at the moment. "If you have a hit film that's playing at the box office right now, you wanna be over there," says Wan, who wrote and directed the film.

"The Americans love success stories. They put you up there. Over here, it's like 'let's keep it real man'. It's definitely a good position for us to be in right now. How long is it going to last? Not long, we know that's Hollywood works. Next month someone else is hotter."

"Saw" - about two men (Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell) who wake up in a windowless bathroom, shackled at opposite ends of the room, and have to work out how to get out - was originally envisioned as something the boys would make in Australia, but when they started to get interest from the states, they jumped at the chance to go Hollywood.

"Saw was our aim, our baby. We were really pushing for it," says Whannell, who co-wrote and co-stars in the film. "We were originally going to make it here, and with our own money - El Mariachi/Clerks style," adds Wan, "but our local manager said 'Hang on a minute, I think someone in LA might be interested in this script.

"Sure enough we sent it to a guy who is an agent over there, he read it, he loved it, and he wanted to meet up with us. At this stage we were pretty broke but thought we might as well go over because an opportunity like that doesn't come along very often. But if we were going over there for a very expensive handshake we wanted to shoot a scene for the movie as well, so that's what we did as well. We started packaging it up and started sending it to studios and producers around town. And that's how it got started."

Not surprisingly, a few of the majors knocked back the duo's pitch. "Some studios thought the subject matter was too full on. Most liked the script though, but they'd say 'Disney doesn't make films like this' or 'Dreamworks doesn't make films like this'.

"There were then a lot of offers to buy the script right off us, but we hung in there and ultimately went with the guys who said 'Look we don't have a lot of money to give you, but you [Whannell] can act in it, and you [Wan] can direct it'. So we went for no money basically," said Wan.

Despite the low budget, they were still able to rope in some pretty big names. "Because the producers put their own money in the film they wanted name actors so that they would make their money back.

Leigh Whannell with one of Saw's co-stars, Shawnee Smith, who has also starred in TV show Becker

"When you get presented with people like Danny Glover, Cary Elwes, Monica Potter for your first film you don't exactly go 'You know what…' The fan boy in me went off," says Wan, who adds he was considering Stellan Skarsgard to play the doctor at one stage.

Now that the film's been a huge success at the U.S. box office, the studio would surely be pushing for an extras-crammed DVD right? "We've done some stuff for it. I would've preferred to have done the commentary after the film got released though," says Wan.

"It's hard to talk about the film until you know how it's going to do. How self-deprecating you should be or how much fun you should have. On the commentary it's just James and I, but we want to do some more - get some of the actors involved."

Whannell says, unlike a lot of other filmmakers these days, they never even thought about a DVD when they were making the pic. "It's interesting, the DVD, because if you're shooting the next Star Wars film you'd know you can shoot all this stuff and have a big special edition DVD, but we didn't expect Saw to even make it to theatres, so its not like we've been shooting a documentary from day one for the features.

"To do that would be presuming the film would get a DVD release, which would warrant such extras. It's all happened so quickly that you're kinda asked 'what have you got?'"

So what have they got? "I've asked James to put some of his student films on there. I'll make a deal with James; I'll put some In-Entertainment stuff (the E-News style show in which Whannell was a roving reporter) on there if he puts some of his films on there."

Already, Lions Gate have greenlit a sequel to Saw, but Wan and Whannell are yet to find out how involved they'll be in it. "[The] Producers are definitely talking about it yeah. We don't know exactly what our full involvement is yet. We'd say we'll be executive producers or overseeing it. It's only in the early stages so I may have a hand in the writing.

"The film just opened, so it feels kinda early to be talking about a sequel. From the moment the film opened at 18.3, the sequel gets greenlit the next day. We haven't had time to think about it. But the producers have had time; they find time to talk about the sequel," Whannell laughs. "I don't think I'll be directing [it]," adds Wan, who wants to move onto directing new projects.

So what's next for writer-actor Whannell? "We've got a script over at Universal, a horror film. And there's a few other things I want to write," says Whannell. "I really wanna find that right next thing, it's really hard. We've got a good one out of the gates first. If you make a first film that's not so good you can only move up. I think we've made a film that's pretty good so we've put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do something that lives up to Saw."

And where do they call home these days? "Our address is still here, but if you wanna be making films and getting them happening you have to be there. Next year, I think we'll be spending a lot of time there," says Whannell.

Saw hits Australian theatres on December 2nd, 2004.

Click here for the movie review.

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