Interview with “Wolf Man” Writer/Director, Leigh Whannell

Full transcript of Interview with “Wolf Man” Writer/Director, Leigh Whannell.

0:14KT: Visionary writer director Leigh Whannell, thank you so much and welcome to the For Your Reference podcast. Truly a visionary.

0:21Leigh: Know, I need to be every time I. Here's the, the visionary. Yeah, there's an. I'll be ringing the bell in the town square.

0:30KT: This is a very surreal on the floor. Partner and I created the podcast in 2019. 2019. Upgrade was our review episode. It's terrible to it. Okay, but we love

0:44Leigh: Oh, thank you. I'm, very excited talk to you.

0:46KT: Thank you. Your films are very buzzy, people love to talk about it. There are delicious visual shots. But what I really love about your films is the groundedness that you bring. There's sci-fi. There's technology even in Wolf Man. We've got some very fun lore and mythology. Um, um, but there's so much in what you do, is that where you start your narratives and then you build out the world or are you just a heart feeling person?

1:15Leigh: I think I am a very sentimental person. You know, I'm an easy crier, you know, um, exactly. I think that it really depends a story, you never quite know what the first building block.

1:27Leigh: You know, people only see the finished Lego structure, but it starts with that brick, that one brick. It could be a more. It could be something more technical, you know, like, uh, man has a chip in his neck and can suddenly walk. Perform it and and that's where you start it. And then you start adding the emotion, like who is this person? Why, who, who has robbed him of his ability to walk?

1:54Leigh: You should build outwards or, or it could go the other way in and be like, you're feeling something, you know, there's this thing in the world. I'm sure you've noticed where reality feels off. Everybody's getting their own version of the truth from different sources. These days it's fractured and that's something that's on my mind. So I've been thinking recently, is there a movie here in something? So that would be an example of going the opposite way. So it really depends on

2:20Leigh: Yeah, it's very much. You. Like, that's going on over there. Yeah, like, yeah, if something's bothering you, that's what's so cathartic about. If something's really. bothering me, you want to express it, and you've got to build outwards from that. And then other times, yeah, it's just little germ of a story idea will pop.

2:39Leigh: And you have to find the emotion. Okay, fine, I have a story idea, really. Genre's a genre, horror is the. Horror is that gal.

2:52KT: You're right, right. You are king of the dominion, um, of horror. And it's essentially like bringing the. I don't know if you want to take this, but I very much feel like your films have like a paranoid protagonist that has a, a. A lot of the times it's justified, especially in Invisible Man, for example. Um, but there's very much a heart and to everything that you do. And Wolf Man, it's so, when you watch the OG 1941 coming to this one, because even at the very amazing IMAX screening where you, um, where you did, you were talking about trying to do something different and it still has those threads masculinity to find your way in this world, maybe less pagans, but how was it Wolf Man, with real world sort of feelings and then melding that into lore? Does it feel like we traverse different worlds or is it all one?

3:52Leigh: Um, you know, I mean, the world feelings you're talking, usually you're basing it off something in your own life, you know, that's the artistic thing, is like, this concerns me, this hurts me. And so the first draft was written during COVID.

4:06Leigh: I co-wrote Wolf Man with my wife. We were just isolated, so cut off. It was very frustrating trying to keep. three young kids happy when couldn't leave the house. All the pressure and anxiety and frustration of that time, it all went into the screenplay. I think that's why the film ended up becoming a story about three isolated people, this family, there's a, there's a disease at the door, you know, that. It felt reflective of that time. So feel like I, I always have to feelings in there. I also base everything on a feeling, like.

4:44Leigh: You keep mentioning this word heart and like, I like that. I, if you said, you know, your films have a, there's real heart there. It's not clinical. It's not cold. There's a heart there. I love that because my way a is, I often use music, but I imagine the movie before I write it. So I'm actually trying to watch the film and evoke. And the things that I respond to is always emotion. Like if I, if get scared, or if I think something's, or if I make myself. If I'm listening to music, picturing a scene in a movie that I'm about to write and making me cry, it gets, I get really excited.

5:25Leigh: Because I'm like, well, if I'm feeling emotionally, chances are, if it affects you emotionally, it's going to affect someone. We, we all have such common things in our. You know, I'm not the only one who was frustrated with kids during. I'm not the only one who felt. Cut off from

5:40KT: You started a. That was your response to the, well, you started it before COVID, but I'm sure it was healthy and cathartic for you to have something to do.

5:52Leigh: Yeah, it gets a bit mindless in. But you know, I know. So the heart, the heart comes from me, making myself feel a certain way, and then trying to give feeling to the audience. Trying to pass it on to a crowd.

6:07KT: Well, I would love to give my heart to your wife, it was a unit film. And I think a lot of the love, especially grief, which unfortunately we don't have time to tap into, but I love the way that on it, because there is a finality, but there is a. Grief is ongoing, um, continue to feel it. And I'm so sorry, we don't even, but I'll hold my feelings and share it somewhere else, Leigh.

6:28Leigh: Well, good, good.

6:31KT: But, uh, in the, uh, premiere, the Sydney premiere, you talked about the Full Moon Film. Um, so that's probably a cheat code for our final question. Um, we finish off our reviews with a recommendation. So what would you pair with as a double feature?

6:47Leigh: Oh, that's good. Like in terms of

6:50KT: Full Moon Film Club, a double feature.

6:54Leigh: I'll give you two. One would be, one good one that we, the Full Moon Film Club, in pre, Blue Valentine, and I had forgotten what a great depiction of a relationship. Um, if you want a depiction of disease that's heartbreaking without the horror element, Amour is, Amour is one of those movies where you watch it and at the end you're like, not sure I have to watch that again. It's a tough watch. Horror-wise, I would pair it up with The Fly. If I went and saw a double bill of Wolf Man and The Fly, I'd be

7:24KT: Thank you so much.

7:27Leigh: Really nice to talk to you. Cheers.