Exclusive: Leigh Whannell Talks Insidious Chapter 2, Cooties, and More!
Steve Barton
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If you like the last third of Insidious and the insanity of its sequel, Insidious Chapter 2, when you see it over the weekend (and you will see it), Leigh Whannell is probably the main reason why.
It feels like Whannell tries to push his longtime collaborator, director James Wan, in the weirdest possible direction in their partnerings just to see how much he can get away with. Honestly, he couldn’t be any nicer, but while sitting across from him during this interview, I did catch myself wondering just what exactly goes on in his brain at times. He might have a twisted nerve somewhere up there, but it’s certainly proved to be a very profitable defect in an otherwise perfectly healthy brain. This is Wan and Whannell’s last pairing for the time being as Whannell now has the opportunity to spread his wings a bit. We also spoke about his upcoming horror comedy, Cooties, starring Elijah Wood (Maniac), Alison Pill (Midnight In Paris), and Rainn Wilson (Super).
Dread Central: Out of curiosity, do a lot of people think you wrote The Conjuring as well?
Leigh Whannell: Yes! Yes. I think that James and I are so tied together creatively that people just assume I wrote it. I get a lot of tweets saying, ‘Great job on The Conjuring!’ I don’t really correct them. But that is interesting. Maybe it’s frustrating for James; it’s not frustrating for me. I think it’s funny. But yeah, I think we are seen as such a duo. People really see us as a team, which is interesting because usually when people are seen as a team, it’s a directing team. Whether it’s the Coens or the Wachowski brothers – brother and sister I should say…
DC: The Spierig brothers …
LW: … The Spierig brothers. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another partnership that was writer/director that was seen as such a duo. I don’t know. I feel very fortunate to have been part of this because I would do all these interviews with James, and thusly, everybody thinks I wrote The Conjuring.
DC: When I look at Insidious and Insidious 2, it’s obvious to me that you wrote them and didn’t do The Conjuring because it’s pretty straightforward and you tend to go batshit crazy. And with Insidious 2 you guys really blew it out of the water. If you’re dealing with a ghost story like this and you have an opportunity to be historical with a lot of different storylines throughout the years, I could see just as a writer that you’d be pulling your hair out trying to figure out how all these things come together. Does it just become overwhelming, or is it hard to wrap your brain around everything and reel yourself in?
LW: Sometimes. I mean, the thing is, working in independent film you really need to shout to be heard. When you’re working with independent film money, you can’t afford huge stars. You’re not going to get Will Smith or Brad Pitt; you can’t afford big effects. You can’t afford the most important thing on any film, which is time. As you know, the lower the budget, the shorter the schedule. Even something like The Conjuring, that’s a twenty million dollar film. They had money for all those sexy steadicam shots. There was a lot of stuff that they had time and money for. I think the reason James and I end up going “batshit crazy” as you say is because we’re really shouting to be heard. Today’s media world is an absolute blizzard. Between the Internet, Netflix, video games, everything, it’s just this absolute hurricane of white noise. Each component of that white noise is desperately competing for your attention. I mean, just walking down the street in New York is like an aural assault of advertisements. ‘Hey you! You need new underwear! Hey you! Come and see this movie!’
DC: It’s like They Live.
LW: It is! It’s a modern version of They Live. I think when you’re working in the independent film world, for us especially making genre films – we’re not making Sundance kitchen sink dramas here – and I think when you don’t have money, the only thing you’re left with is ideas. So what we end up doing is going batshit crazy. We have the doll on the tricycle, and we have the people in make-up. What we’re essentially saying is, ‘Come and see our film. You’ll get something you won’t get in a mainstream studio film that’s going to play it safe.’ The sensibility was a little bit different on Insidious because we considered it to be a much smaller film.
In terms of wrapping my head around the concept of The Further, it was kind of labyrinthine sometimes. You find yourself going in one direction and then you realize you can’t because this is tied off. The advantage of that is, because it’s a supernatural world, you can sort of bend time and fold time. So we had a lot of fun visiting the first movie in the sequel.
DC: Is one of your goals to try and act in as many movies as you write so you can stay and make sure they don’t change the script?
LW: Well, I think one reason is that I’m terrible at auditioning and the only way I can get acting roles is to write the movie up until this point. But I do think people like Seth Rogen have really taken the stigma out of writing your own stuff. I’ve seen those guys and what they’re doing, and I’m really envious of that. I love what Judd Apatow has created. I think that that’s something I would really enjoy. But you’re also very right, in one way, about wanting to stay on and be a part of it. I think one of the bad things about being a screenwriter is you write the film alone in a room and then you hand it off and then everyone goes out to the party and you’re not welcome. Being an actor in the movie, it helps you stay involved. A film set is like summer camp for adults so when you’re acting in a film, I feel like you get to take part in that party.
DC: With Cooties you’re moving into the horror comedy realm. Do you feel like it’s easier to write a scare than a joke? It’s all pretty much setup, right?
LW: They’re very similar. They’re very close cousins. I’m definitely in awe of joke writing. I feel like I’ve written so many horror films that I feel very comfortable writing scares; whereas, writing jokes scares the shit out of me, ironically. I wrote it with Ian Brennan, who’s one of the creators of “Glee.” His muscles for writing comedy are so tight. I really learned a lot from him and watching him write jokes. Then again on the set – watching the actors improvise and watching Rainn Wilson and Nasim Pedrad improv on top of their lines – I learned a lot from that. You can imagine that this is what the set of Anchorman is like. It was a really interesting experience, and I learned that I really loved comedy. I love it. I really consider Cooties more of a comedy than a horror film. I can’t wait for you to see Cooties because I think the Dread Central crowd will love it.
Insidious Chapter 2 is now out in theaters.
Related Story: Check out our Insidious Chapter 2 news archive
Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions is producing (with Alliance financing). FilmDistrict will distribute the film theatrically in the United States, with Sony handling the majority of domestic ancillary rights. Alliance will distribute in Canada, the U.K. (through its Momentum Pictures subsidiary), and Spain (through Aurum); and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will distribute in all other international territories.
Look for Insidious Chapter 2 on Friday, September 13th! For more information visit the Insidious Facebook page, and follow along on Twitter at @InsidiousMovie.
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