[Editor’s note: The following contains some spoilers for The Watchers.]

The Big Picture

Based on the novel by A.M. Shine, ‘The Watchers’ is a suspenseful journey with a sense of unease leading to wonder at the end.
Ishana Shyamalan was influenced by her father, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, but found her own voice as an artist.
‘The Watchers’ ensemble, which includes Dakota Fanning, was carefully curated to capture the film’s multiple tones and chemistry.

This summer, Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, will be releasing her feature directorial debut The Watchers on June 14th while her father will be releasing his latest movie Trap in August. Based on the novel by A.M. Shine, The Watchers follows Mina (Dakota Fanning) as she gets stranded in a forest in western Ireland. When she finds shelter alongside three strangers, she quickly learns there’s more than meets the eye and that they’re being watched by mysterious creatures at night.

Shyamalan grew up in a home surrounded by art as her father made movies, and then got on-the-job training as a writer, director and producer on the Apple TV+ series Servant before bringing her artistic sensibilities to The Watchers. Collider, along with other members of the media, was recently invited out to Soho House in West Hollywood to preview 10 minutes of The Watchers along with a trailer and to hear from Shyamalan as she broke down the vibes she wanted to create with the upcoming summer movie. She also talked about the story’s journey of suspense and sense of unease, what appealed to her about the novel, how her father’s work has influenced her, finding her own voice as an artist, what makes writing a torturous process, and putting this group of actors together.

The Watchers Follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, as she gets stranded in an extensive, immaculate forest in western Ireland. After finding shelter, she becomes trapped alongside three strangers, stalked by mysterious creatures each night.Release Date June 7, 2024 Director Ishana Shyamalan Cast Dakota Fanning , Georgina Campbell , Olwen Fouéré , Siobhan Hewlett Writers A.M. Shine , Ishana Shyamalan

Question: What can moviegoers expect when they experience your film in theaters?

ISHANA SHYAMALAN: The Watchers is a journey of suspense that hopefully leads to a feeling of wonder at the end. My hope is that it’s just an experience that plays on that sense of unease, and then takes you to a bigger, wonderful place.

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This is based on a novel by A.M. Shine. What was it about the book that interested you and also made you see it as a film?

SHYAMALAN: So many things. It’s such a wonderful novel that A.M. Shine wrote. The main thing that I was drawn to was the classical structure of it. It’s a character who gets taken into this very mysterious world that then just keeps expanding and expanding. It had this fusion of very classical, structural beats in a very modern world. And then, when I read the book, it’s such a visually rich book and your imagination just runs wild when you read it. I was so excited by the opportunity of imagining those different spaces he created and playing with that.

Ishana Shyamalan Was Influenced By Her Filmmaker Father M. Night Shyamalan While Also Finding Her Own Voice
Image via Eric Charbonneau/Warner Bros.

With such an influential filmmaker as a role model, how has your father’s work influenced you and how have you found your own voice as an artist?

SHYAMALAN: The training from him has existed my whole life. I’ve just been observing what [his] process looks like, from writing to auditioning to then being on [his] sets, throughout my whole life. I’ve had this time of quiet observation for the first 22 years of my life, to watch and see how [he] did it and to watch [his] emotions throughout the process. I reference that knowledge as much as I can, as I’m going about it. And then, I differentiate myself because we’re just different people. It’s been really interesting to find where our tastes are the same and where they differ. Filmmaking is so much a curation of who you are. If you are honing into what you believe as a human being and being true to your life experience, then it comes out as more truthful. The process of making this movie has been tuning into that for myself.

Coming from such a creative family, did you ever want to rebel and do something else?

SHYAMALAN: I’ve moved through different forms of art throughout my whole life and came to filmmaking later in life. But there’s really been no other option, in terms of my psyche. I’ve felt that I need to be doing art to survive.

Ishana Shyamalan Was Most Inspired By Japanese Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki
Image via Warner Bros.

Aside from your father, who are some of your other filmmaking influences, particularly for The Watchers?

SHYAMALAN: There are so many. In my bones, I’m most inspired by Miyazaki. Those have been the movies that, throughout my life, have moved me the most. They’re very sacred things to me. In many ways, this was chasing the experience that I feel when I watch those movies, which is one of wonder and adventure and innocence. I watched so many beautiful movies as I was putting this together. I really love artists who experiment with visuals. Kieslowski is one of my favorite directors. His means of using color and visuals has always been very inspiring to me. I watched Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels, which is a very different movie, but just in terms of his visual selections and costume design, that was very influential.

What can you say about your writing process? How do you approach a script?

SHYAMALAN: I love the process of building structure and playing with structure. I’m always thirsting for reinvention, in that sense. I love putting something down, and then just moving all the pieces around. It’s a torturous process in many ways. It takes a lot of focus and continued energy that goes into it. Inevitably the things and emotions that you’re going through, at whatever time you’re building the script, become embedded into it. For this movie, dialogue was changing and character work was changing as I was navigating different things in my own life and just trying to work out those emotions through the script. It became a grouping of all those things that was this period of my life.

You worked as a director, writer, and producer on the Apple TV+ series Servant. Was that on-the-job training? How did that prepare you for making your feature film debut?

SHYAMALAN: It was such a wonderful thing. I worked on Servant for three years and it was great. That particular TV format is so wonderful because you get to just play with form in a really safe space. There’s already a look and a vibe created, and you get to practice different skill sets within that framework that’s already been built for you. It was really wonderful, just trying to see how, within a 30-minute episode format, you could make structure better and make the characters work better. I really got an opportunity to train in that way.

Related Ishana Night Shyamalan to Make Directorial Debut With ‘The Watchers’ The film is scheduled to release in 2024.

The Watchers blends so many elements – thriller, horror, fantasy, and drama. How did you put together the creative team to capture all those different tones in one film?

SHYAMALAN: That was one of the longest parts of the process, with the curation of the various creative people who were gonna be on it. They’re all very distinctive artists in their own right. The DP, the production designer, the costumer, and all these people are very singular artists. There were many conversations and explorations to find the right team who brought this thing to life. It carries the energy of many different, special artists in it.

Casting ‘The Watchers’ Was About Catching That Perfect Alchemy Between the Actors

You have Dakota Fanning in the lead. How did you put this ensemble together? What that chemistry instantaneous?

SHYAMALAN: It was very much me imagining what the four vibes of these people were like and what they would be like together. As a continual lesson that I’ve learned during the filmmaking process, there’s just a certain alchemy that happens and if you’re lucky enough to catch it, you do. They have such an electric energy when they’re all together. It was really cool. It felt like theater to do it.

Did they meet in person before shooting, or were they all cast separately?

SHYAMALAN: They were all cast separately. Some of them met on the read-through, which was over Zoom, and then they just jumped in together. It’s very much about Mina meeting these other characters, so there was this blissful thing where she was getting to know them, and they were all getting to know each other. They fused by the end of the shoot, so it was wonderful.

How challenging is it to get a sense of chemistry over Zoom?

SHYAMALAN: I was able to take a look at these actors’ work and make a jump from there. It’s very much about a vibe that I feel. If I feel that vibe, that’s what drew me to these four people. They all have a very singular ethereal, compelling energy about them. They all have very specific worlds that they live in. It ended up working out quite nicely.

Related The 10 Best Dakota Fanning Movies, According to Rotten Tomatoes Dakota Fanning’s movie career spans over two decades beginning at the age of seven!

We’re familiar with Dakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell, but where did you find the other cast members?

SHYAMALAN: The boy is Oliver Finnegan. He’s an incredible British actor. He’s super young. He’s 19. He’s just absolutely a supernova and does just the most electric things ever on camera. I’m particularly excited for him with this movie. And he’s just the sweetest person ever, as well. And then, the woman is Olwen Fouéré, who is an Irish theatrical actress, and she’s just brilliant. She’s had a long career of wonderful performance art and working with all these incredible people. She brought this legendary wisdom and technique to the process, as well.

Do they have similar acting styles?

SHYAMALAN: One of the things I love most about the process is that all the actors I’ve worked with, up until this point, have very different communication styles and they need different things from you. Some of them don’t want you to say too much, and some of them want a very specific thing. I love that piece of the process where you basically get to know them and get to know what they need. As a young person, figuring out how to communicate in these different ways and give to them in the ways that they need is a very cool psychological discovery as you go through it.

Did you have time for rehearsal with this?

SHYAMALAN: We had a little bit of rehearsal time, which was lovely. We had a lot of chats about the intention of the scenes and the movement of their relationships with each other. It was a quick process. It felt very quick to shoot and put together the movie. It was cool to get to figure it out together and play it as a group.

The Watchers is in theaters on June 14th. Check out the trailer: