Leigh Whannell is an Australian filmmaker and actor. He has written multiple films that were directed by his friend James Wan, including Saw (2004), Dead Silence (2007), Insidious (2010), and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). Whannell made his directorial debut with Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), and has since directed two more films, Upgrade (2018) and The Invisible Man (2020).
Whannell and Wan are the creators of the Saw franchise. Whannell wrote the first installment, co-wrote the second and third installments, was producer or executive producer for all the films, and appeared as the Adam Stanheight character in three of the installments. He was also the writer of the Saw video game (2009), and co-writer of the 2014 film Cooties.
Today we talk to Leigh about his latest film WOLFMAN we have also previously talked to him about Invisible Man & Upgrade.
To listen to the full interview hit play below or you can search for Accessreel on all streaming music/podcast apps.
WOLFMAN opens in cinemas January 16
Near complete transcript below.
LW
Hey there.
AR
Hey, Leigh, how you going mate?
LW
Good, good. Thanks for asking.
AR
How’s everything going? How was the premiere last night? Did you get a good response from the crowd?
LW
Yeah, it was good. It was very fun. There was a lot of family in the audience, so it was it’s just good to be in Melbourne. Know. There’s half the half of the audience is. You know, family and people I grew up with.
AR
I’m intrigued to see how this all came about. Was it the success of Invisible Man, that sort of gave you the oomph to get this via Blumhouse or was it, because this film was being in development for ages, so I’m just wondering how it landed on your desk.
LW
It was. They came to me. I wasn’t thinking about Wolfman. You know, it’s similarly to Invisible Man, which was also very accidental. This was just purely suggestion. Somebody suggested the character to me and asked me, you know, how would you approach this? And it was a that was a clever question because once I have an idea in my mind that I’m obsessed with, I can’t let it go so. I came up with an idea that I thought would be an interesting way into the Wolfman character, and from then on it was. Just a matter of getting it off the ground. There were a lot of obstacles in the way there were strikes and. You know, active schedules all a lot of a lot of things in the way, but it was, it was really just something that was suggested to me.
AR
Yeah. Now fair call. What I found intriguing about the film is number one, the location’s amazing. But #2 is that you kept it quite confined. It was a very small cast. It did feel a little bit isolating while watching it, and I think that’s the whole point. Yeah, but was that the plan to start off with, like, isolation or? Did you think about setting it into like a big big city or something? Or was it always like this from the start?
LW
It was pretty. Early on it was it was about isolation that just felt scary to me and. The first was written during COVID. It was that just I just felt so isolated like we were in Los Angeles my wife and I, we had three young kids and you know Los Angeles is not a city like New York or London where everybody’s stacked up on top of each other, i s very spread out and it can be it can be an isolated city at the best of times, let alone when there’s a global pandemic so I really feeding off that energy, I remember during that time I would walk the dog at night, I would go for a walk around my neighbourhood and I’d be out there listening to this kind of, you know, eerie music, you know, scary music and just. The vibe on the street was it was so desolate, there was no one around. It was whisper quiet. There was no cars and I was just really feeding off that energy of that time.
AR
Yeah, for sure. And it’s sort of you said that you live in Los Angeles. I hope your house is OK.
LW
Yeah. For the moment it is, you know, everyone in LA is affected in some way, you know, just breathing in this fire and everybody knows somebody who’s lost their home. So. Yeah, hopefully everything gets under control soon.
AR
Yeah, fingers crossed. So when taking on a movie such as Wolfman, there’s such a pedigree behind it with the films that have come before and just the legacy of it all. Was there any little bits or little Easter eggs that you wanted to make sure you throw in there or?
Speaker
Not so much easter eggs, but there is a lineage of the character that I felt I had to give the audience. You know, I the transformation is the key to a wolfman film that seems to be the thing that people know about. The Wolfman is that, that that, you know, the moon will come out and the person will transform it to what people look forward to. So I was trying to give them a different version of that kind of slow it down, but I was keeping in mind that whatever I do, it has to really deliver like it has to. It has to be something that is exhilarating for Wolfman fans.
AR
Yeah, definitely. And obviously you’ve got to get the monster right. So in this case, Wolfman, you’ve got to get the look right. And as you said, the change, right, how hard was it to get it to where you wanted it to be because, yeah, it is something that people go, hey, that was a pretty cool transformation. And yours is great. Like it looks great. So how hard is that?
LW
No, great. Love that. I mean I decided to slow it down a bit and I thought that it would be interesting to depict. A werewolf transformation at a much slower pace. Rather than just doing it all in one minute, you know, as we’ve seen in the past, I was thinking no, let’s, let’s take more of an approach like the fly. I really find that slow degradation of the body to be really interesting just from a drama perspective. It’s interesting to watch somebody deal with something slowly that’s changing them so. I felt. Very early on, that was my way in.
AR
While also putting your actor through the ringer who’s got to go through that progression? Ha!
LW
Yes.
AR
So one thing I did walk out of this movie looking at was the sound design and I thought I have to compliment you on that because it’s pretty bloody good.
LW
Oh yeah. Oh, thank you.
AR
How did? Go about getting that the right balance, because if you go too hard. In in more for me it can take you out of a scene. So how did you how did you go with the sound design? How difficult was that?
LW
It’s never difficult for me to sound design. It’s actually my favourite part of the filmmaking process. I mean, there are aspects of everything that I love. You know, there are aspects of writing that I love and being on set, the camaraderie of the crew. The summer camp vibe of being on a set there are. There are so many. Things I love about. Filmmaking. But if I had to pick a pick, a favourite stage of the process, it’s the sound mix. It feels like pure creativity, you know, you’re sitting in a movie theatre. You’re watching the movie and the movie is coming alive. That’s when it comes alive for the first time. And I had. So many conversations about the sound design prior to actually getting in that room that it. I remember when I walked in on the first day, I said to a Will Files and PK the mixer and sound designer I just walked in and said finally, you know, we’re finally here after all these conversations and all this talk and theory, it’s time to put the theory into practise. So it was less than it was difficult. It was just purely fun and in terms of calibrating it and knowing when to go too big or I feel like with sound design, my rule is it can never be too big. I’m always pushing them. I’m pushing the mixes and sound designers outside the box. Seen them to try things going louder. I really want it to be significant.
AR
Well that actually led into my next question, because was gonna actually ask you because you’ve worked on these like Blumhouse Films, and they’re notorious for having smaller budgets, out of the entire process from like development to release, you’ve just said what your favourite part of the process is. What’s the part of the process that you just go? Oh, we’ve got to go through this. Like we’ve got to do this. Is it development or or what?
LW
I would say 2 come to mind. One is test screenings. When you’re showing the film to the outside world like that’s always so nerve wracking. Of course it can have. A happy ending. You know you can get a good result and suddenly you’re on Cloud 9, but going into it very nerve wracking. You’ve cared for this little baby bird for so long. You’re holding it, you’re protecting it. And suddenly you’re now throwing it out there for the cruel world to judge so definitely that is nerve wracking and then I think that developing a script can get depending on who you’re developing with and what it is you’re doing. That can be very taxing. You know when you’ve got too many opinions coming at you. So those would be the two areas that I’m probably the least enthusiastic about, but you can also choose a path. Where you can avoid that you know you can choose to work with producers. Who aren’t going to overwork you when it comes to development, you know, Blum house is great with stuff like that and also, you know, with test screenings, you can, you know, I tend to look the other way. You know, I try not to. I’m not present in the room. I think that that’s just too masochistic to be like, yes, I’m going to sit here. Listen to this comment.
AR
I was just about to ask, are you one of those directors that will go sit in the room?
LW
No, I’m. I’m the other guy. I’m the guy who’s like. I don’t need to be here. I can read the cards later. I can have someone translate them for me. I don’t need to do it. Yeah, I haven’t met anyone else like me. Who actually doesn’t want to be in the room.
AR
Yeah, that’d be a bit much definitely. Now with the film, the farmhouse itself. Was that an actual house or a set? Because the location was incredible, and it was on this perfect hill.
LW
Yeah, that was it was. It was incredible. Yeah. Yeah. We found this great farm in New Zealand. We actually had to get the bulldozers out and kind of engineer a section of this farm to be perfect, and it was entirely built Ruby Mathers, the production designer. She and I really bought of this farmhouse as a character in the movie. And so we were working together a lot and pouring over hundreds of photos of different farm houses in the US and different areas. I mean we can have conversations all day about the wood and the texture of the wood and the colour. So yeah, she worked really hard. She built that whole farmhouse in the barn, the entire farm…. and then we had the inside of the House as a set that Ruby’s team would just did an amazing job on. But I’m glad to hear you say that you responded to it because it’s not a set that calls attention to itself, unlike a movie. Like, you know, Wonka or. Nor one of these big heightened movies. If you’ve done your job well with this film, the audience doesn’t even notice. They just think it’s a real. So it’s gratifying if you call it out.