![‘The Trap’: M. Night Shyamalan Talks Empathy Shifts, Catching Josh Hartnett’s “Moment,” Potential Sequels & More [Interview]](https://theplaylist.net/wp-content/plugins/wp-fastest-cache-premium/pro/images/blank.gif)
As you probably already know from the trailers, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan probably wins the best film concept of the year with his captivating thriller “Trap,” even if you haven’t seen a frame. The ingenious design of the feature is simple but super effective and engrossing: a father takes his teenage daughter to a packed stadium concert for a pop star, but once there, he learns the entire concept is a ruse and sting operation to catch a serial killer on the loose known as “The Butcher.” There’s one rub to it all: this doting, caring, and loving father is also that serial killer, unbeknownst to everyone, including the FBI, who’s after him.
But as the clock on the concert ticks—and law enforcement at least knows he’s inside the stadium somewhere— the anxiety-riddled countdown to catching him draws closer and closer while our protagonist, a killer that you can’t help empathize with, at least a little, tries to figure out what options he has to not get caught, and maintain the subterfuge of being a thoughtful family man without making his daughter any the wiser.
In many ways, it’s a classic Hitchcockian thriller with the audience forced to see the film through the eyes of a killer and at least sympathize with his plight a little and then watch as the noose of entrapment slowly coils around his neck. It’s Shyamalan’s best film since “The Village,” super taught, tense, simple and yet deceptively complex. No spoilers, but it evolves, and while it’s an entertaining rollercoaster ride at first that has his trademark twisted sense of humor, its last act turns into something much darker, twisted, ambitious, and even heartbreaking.
The film stars Josh Hartnett as the killer and father—and he’s seemingly really having a moment—newcomer Ariel Donoghue as his unsuspecting but increasingly worried daughter, and M. Night’s daughter Saleka Shyamalan, an R&B singer who plays the pop star in the film and eventually figures into the plot. As “Trap” opens in theaters, we talked to M. Night about his excellent elevated suspense thriller with an audacious structure.
You’ll have to forgive some of his and my vague comments, as we avoid all spoilers for the film beyond the main concept.
The concept of this movie on its own is really terrific. I loved this movie, its many emotional layers, and the evolution it takes. No spoilers, but it’s almost two films in one: the first half and then this darker third act. What was the central kernel that sparked this idea?
That’s really interesting the way you just articulated that, because I think that’s really reflective of how I wrote it and how I thought of it, which was I kept going, “What is happening here? Why is this happening? What is happening?” And it kept unfolding in this reverse-engineered way to get to something very simple and very— I’m trying not to say anything, spoilery—a quiet that is a feeling between two people. That’s the beginning. The ramifications are where we start the movie. And then we reverse engineer structure-wise. Ultimately, I’m a really minimalist I, and I love that it ended up being the thing that’s… quieter, darker, what you’ve seen [smiles].
In the movie theater, it’s interesting when we get to the end, it’s like dead silent, the audience gets really still, and it’s so for 10, 15 minutes, it’s like silence. And from having this boombastic first hour and then something that deeply shifts, it’s really fun.
To answer your question: the idea originally came from conversations with [my daughter] Sika about music and me feeling that she’s one of the rare people who could write an album for a narrative—not like when inspiration strikes you, but intentionally. Like “Can you write a fictional character and write this many songs for it in a timetable?” And we can make a narrative around it. And then I said, “What about a thriller with music?” And so it just evolved from that into the movie you’ve seen.
What’s that like not only working with your daughter but directing her? That has to change the dynamics between you, too.
Well, let’s separate the two for a second. The first part is working with an artistic equal, who I consider world-class at what she does. She has the rarest skill sets. She’s worked at music since she was four years old, and she’s 27, almost 28 now. On that scale, she’s my partner in the music element of this, in the writing and performing and singing and all that stuff—she’s lights out amazing.
She’s Josh Hartnett in the music world, and Josh is lights out in the acting world. And so there’s that. And then I worked with her once on an audition for a TV show, in which she almost got the lead of a big TV show. And when I worked with her— this was two and a half years ago— there was a third of fourth take that we did, she did something, and I was like,” Saleka, that was amazing what you just did.” And what she was doing was feeling and not coming up with an agenda. Most people and actors come unconsciously with an agenda. But she was just reacting with real purity. So, I remembered that. And so, on the directing side, it’s very familiar to me to talk to a pure soul. A lot of times, it’s a child that I’m talking to, and I just talk about the character, and we both empathize at a deep level and make this person real.
Josh Hartnett really seems to be having a moment, and he’s terrific in this. What made you think of him and cast him?
It’s the right person at the right time. And as you suggested, he’s getting all these amazing roles. He’s in “Oppenheimer,” he’s in season three of “The Bear,” he’s in “Black Mirror,” and he’s drawing in like-minded individuals. He’s drawing opportunities and energy to his energy, which is transmitting: “Hey, I have all these attributes, the star quality, the craft, all of that stuff. I’ve learned how to de-filter myself, and I don’t want to play it safe.” So, whoever has an opportunity, whether it’s me, Christopher Nolan, or whoever, we sense that in him. It’s like, “Oh, you are there. Let’s go!” I want you to do this part for me. And so, we attract each other in this high-wire act.
The idea is a self-contained thriller which is minimalist, but it also expands. What that kind of claustrophobic thriller a kind of sub-genre you wanted to tackle?
Oh yeah. What always interests me is the walls and barriers. I need parameters for suspense. So I need something: sometimes it’s physical parameters, sometimes it’s temporal parameters, and in this case, it’s both, right? This takes place in one day, like “Old” is on a beach and it’s moving really fast. So it’s a temporal wall that is closing in on you and physical in the sense that you can’t get off the beach. So, I do like having suspense. That’s why it’s really hard to time jump in a thriller. You reduce the stakes if you time jump and then suddenly say, “One week later,” you kill the stakes. So, I like being with someone with an intense experience that’s happening on a particular day.
You also do a super job of subverting a suspenseful subgenre. Yours is a temporal ticking clock, a self-contained thriller until it’s not, and then you have this really ambitious structure where it sheds its skin and becomes something else.
Use the format to your advantage. Trying to come up with an interesting new format for the narrative is one of the things that excite me, the joys of it that I haven’t felt before as it unfolds. And we’ve had incredible examples of that, Let’s say, like “Psycho” or even “Full Metal Jacket” or these films that flip structure, and you’re like, “Whoa, we’ve never seen that before.” So, how to tell his story is, is as important to me as the story.
The trick of this movie is really threading the needle of this main character, one half psychopath—which we don’t see all that much—one part loving father and one part tense and worried man, which is connected to the killer side of getting caught. So, our empathy constantly shifts all around for him, and that must have been difficult to hold together.
That’s correct. The needle that’s so difficult is the character threading himself. It’s one-on-one with the character’s dilemma. Normally, in this guy’s life, he’s the dad, and then, at moments, he’s the Butcher, and they don’t really speak to each other at all. So, it’s quite easy for him to compartmentalize and keep this ruse going for a long time.
But on this particular day, he’s both the killer and father and so this skillset of swapping and going from one personality to the other—now he’s forced to do them simultaneously. It’s almost like his entire life philosophy is being threatened because he believes in compartmentalization, but on this day, he can’t. And so, the butcher has to be the dad, and the dad has to be the Butcher. How can he manage this suddenly? And that tension that you are just eliciting is an actor, Josh’s challenge, and the character has the same issue. That’s the fun of calling “action” and watching Josh do his thing. He can only be the dad when he is not emotional. He has this superpower, but he has to be feeling no empathy. But his daughter is his kryptonite.
The genius of this layered empathy, in a very Hitchcock-ian way, is we can’t help but sympathize with that anxiety he feels about getting caught or the friction of being two people at the same time that he’s not used to being because we’re human. Because he’s in conflict, he’s falling apart, and whether we find him despicable or not, everyone can empathize with panic.
I think Hitchcock was so fascinated by how quickly we can empathize with someone doing something wrong. It’s like, “Get out, watch out, the police are coming!” and then you’re like, “Wait a minute, what am I rooting for this guy for?” And you always empathize with a character that has a problem. So we’re inherently invested in him, solving the problem, even if the problem is getting away with doing something horrible. So it’s a really interesting psychological thing you’re talking about; we can’t turn off our empathy. That’s the irony. We can’t turn off our empathy for a person who has no empathy.
No spoilers, obviously, but would you ever consider a sequel to this?
I’ll tell you two things. My answer to that: we screened this for an audience and they were so excited. And at the end, in a test screening, someone asked the audience, “How many of you wanna see a sequel of this? And every hand in the theater went up and I was hiding. And I saw it, and I was like, “Whoa.”
So that’s one. And then two, okay, I finished this movie, three weeks ago, I went back to the office the next day and felt an absolute loss that I wasn’t going be with these characters again. I used to run to the editing room. I loved this movie and I wanted to be with this music and these characters and Cooper and Riley and Lady Raven, all of them. And so that was a strange feeling. They become a part of you when you’re making these characters. And, and it was such a joyful experience; we were laughing through it and, playing, and the audience can feel that. So, yeah…
Good answer. Many of your films have a shared and connected universe. Is there anything in there that I missed?
There’s only one thing, which was a reference to Ishana’s [Night Shyamalan‘s] movie [“The Watchers”], which you see on a poster. I don’t know if you caught that.
Oh yes, I did see that!
There’s probably something else I haven’t thought about. But if I had believed I was going to have a full career—which I never believed—I would’ve thought this out more and made all these characters somehow interrelated. But I didn’t know audiences were going to let me do 16 of the movies. I thought it was going to be one-and-done. Like, “Okay, this kid sees ghosts, and that’s that.” And I was able to convince them to let me make one more movie and then another one and another. It’s the immigrant mentality, man—they’re never going to let us get away with this, so let me, let me just do another one, quick! [laughs].
I hear that. Do you have a dream project you would love to tackle that you haven’t done? Or lined up next?
No, it’s funny. I got to make everything I wanted to make. It’s not like there’s a big bucket list. There is one script that I’ve had since I was a kid. I’m thinking about that. There’s maybe a little, “I wish I should have done that one that was offered to me. Or I wish I did this movie at that moment.” But there’s not this big, “I wish I could YXZ franchise and they never offered it to me.” It’s not much of a big list or part of the plan, really.
Well, what’s on deck? What’s cooking next?
I have a few ideas that I think are going to be one of my next few movies. I’m a little bit behind in my own ideas, which is interesting. I’ve been backlogged a little bit because “Old” and “Knock At The Cabin” were other people’s source materials. So my ideas got shoved down a little bit and “Trap” was the first one of those original ideas. So I have a bunch of—who knows how it’s all going to play out over these next few years. This is my 30th year of making movies. Hopefully, I’ll be sitting here talking to you when we begin the 40th year, and I feel as happy and as inspired. Maybe I’ll get to make one more. I don’t know. And I like that mentality; that’s the truth, you just don’t know.
“Trap” opens in theaters August 2 via Warner Bros. This interview has been condensed for length and clarity.