James Wan
32 quotes
Biography
James Wan is a Malaysian-born Australian filmmaker. He has primarily worked in the horror genre as the co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises and the creator of The Conjuring Universe, the highest-grossing horror franchise at over $2.9 billion.
"I love coming in with a battle plan, but I also love the freedom to make things up with my actors, and my DP, too. Sometimes we’ll be in a scene and I see new things we can do, so I will throw whatever stuff that has been cooking away in my brain for a long time because I think what I'm coming up with on the set might serve the film better. You know, your instinct will tell you, “This is a better way, try this other way instead,” and that's very important for me, and that is my style of filmmaking, for better or for worse. That's how I like to approach it. And a lot of it comes to me when I'm designing the script, the screenplay. I'm generally very involved in the screenplay, even the ones I'm not on officially as a writer, I'm still extremely involved in how I craft the screen with the writers. I like to get in there and I really craft the world so I can have an idea of how all that will play out before I go on set. Then when I go on set, I like to keep it free, so that I can improvise with my actors."
"I think for me anyway, the most successful horror movies that work are the ones that can create characters who you care about and that have characteristics that resonate with you and I think that is highly important, because if you can create characters that are likeable and people you can relate to, to me it makes the scares that much more scarier."
"It's pretty scary to know how quickly time flies."
"I remembered a long time ago when 'A League of Their Own' came out, and they had the opening sequence with an older Geena Davis. We all just thought it was amazing, but you find out it actually wasn't Geena Davis; it wasn't makeup. It was basically finding an actress that looked like her, and then Geena just dubbed her voice."
"Aquaman's such an amazing character."
"I use myself as the barometer to gauge what is scary. I like to think if something scares me, then there's a very good chance an audience will feel the same way."
"For me, the sound design and the musical score is a big part of what makes scary movies work."
"As a filmmaker, you aspire to want to make movies that can hopefully stand the test of time, but you never know when that will happen or if that will happen."
"We think craft is important, and the irony has always been that horror may be disregarded by critics, but often they are the best-made movies you're going to find in terms of craft. You can't scare people if they see the seams."
"All my movies are about people with some ideology, but guess what? It never works out."
"I believe in spirits. I believe in faith. I believe in spirituality. I believe in aliens as well."
"We live in a world that relies on technology."
"If you come down to it, there's only a handful of worlds that action films live in. You have your car chases, your gun fights, and your fights."
"People are so used to seeing John Goodman as a lovable dad or the quirky characters he played in the Coen Brothers films."
"People are so used to seeing John Goodman as a loveable dad or the quirky characters he played in the Coen Brothers films."
"That's the thing about Aquaman that's cool is he's not an alien, right? He's from our planet, and he's from a society that we're not privy to in the context of the story."
"Isn't it crazy to think that we've explored space more than we have explored the depths of our ocean? That just fires up my imagination about potential sea monsters and cool creatures, that kind of stuff."
"'Fast and Furious' is the only franchise that I've directed that I did not create from scratch. So it definitely was an eye-opening experience for me coming to that world. I had to be respectful of the roles that had been established by the filmmakers before me, and I was cool with that."
"My low-budget films, more than anything, taught me that you've got to create cool, likable characters and great stories because, if you don't, it doesn't matter how cool it might look - no one is going to care about it."
"I always say, what is cool for me with 'The Conjuring', is it's not just another scary set piece or another scary case; it's more about what I can do with the characters of Ed and Lorraine Warren."
"There's something very cool about that indie spirit that I try to hang on to even now with the bigger films that I'm working on."
"I grew up loving X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman. Those are obviously the key big ones, but there's always something kind of cool about Aquaman still, the idea of creating a huge world that is on our planet."
"The thing that ultimately pushed me more towards 'Aquaman' is I love the possibility of creating a whole new world. I've always wanted to do a world creation story and visually create this amazing, incredible, magical kingdom."
"I've always wanted to do a world creation story and visually create this amazing, incredible, magical kingdom."
"I like to think if something scares me, then there's a very good chance an audience will feel the same way. The key is creating scenarios that people can relate to."