Shyamalan's dark obsession

New York: The supernatural fascinates film director M Night Shyamalan because he wants to make people believe in things for which there are no evidence.

"It's about can you believe in something if I convince you—an alien, a supernatural thing, something for which you have no evidence," said Shyamalan in an exclusive interview to CNN–IBN.

His latest movie, Lady in Water, releases on July 21 in the US. Paul Giamatti, of Sideways fame, plays the superintendent of an apartment building who rescues a young woman from drowning.

Giamatti is shocked when he discovers that the woman is a bedtime story character who is trying to return home. "These are the same bedtime stories I used to tell my kids," said Shyamalan. "The apartment building is a microcosm of the world."

Like Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski in his earlier films, Shyamalan makes cameo appearances in his movies. He has even acted in a two-minute commercial for American Express.

Are these short roles some kind of a superstition? No, said Shyamalan. In Lady in Water, Shyamalan moves on from cameos and takes up a larger role. "I like doing emotional parts in my movies. I felt very connected with the role I play in Lady in Water."

Indian actress Sarita Choudhry plays Shyamalan’s sister in the film. "It was fun for me to have an Indian actress in the cast though the movie is truly international—there are Spanish actors in it too," he said.

Born in India and raised in the affluent suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Shyamalan developed a passion for filmmaking quite early in his life.

He has used Philadelphia as the backdrop in Wide Awake (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002) and The Village (2004).

Shyamalan would love to do a film in India some time. "I was looking forward to do some part of my movie in India. I almost did the opening of Signs in India. The film opens with an Indian family finding crop circles in the fields and later Mel Gibson finds similar circles in a field in Pennsylvania.”

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