James Wan

People are so used to seeing John Goodman as a lovable dad or the quirky characters he played in the Coen Brothers films.

People are so used to seeing John Goodman as a loveable dad or the quirky characters he played in the Coen Brothers films.

I'm a big movie fan, and I want to make movies in every genre. I want to make my romantic comedy one day.

If you come down to it, there's only a handful of worlds that action films live in. You have your car chases, your gun fights, and your fights.

I think, ultimately, if you create characters that people like and can relate to, your characters are grounded on a human level even if your cars are not.

Language-wise, my mom and dad's dialect, they're pretty obscure. It's Chinese, but not your traditional Chinese, like Cantonese or Mandarin. It wasn't something that I got to use very much growing up. We eventually just spoke English around the house.

We live in a world that relies on technology.

I always felt that what is scary is actually hearing someone tell you what they think they see. That sense of invisibility makes things a lot scarier, since your imagination tends to fill in the gaps.

You know what's funny is, when I made 'Saw,' I got accused of being a fascist; when I made 'Insidious,' I got accused of being godless, and now I made the 'Conjuring' films, and I'm accused of being too much God.

I believe in spirits. I believe in faith. I believe in spirituality. I believe in aliens as well.

We think craft is important, and the irony has always been that horror may be disregarded by critics, but often they are the best-made movies you're going to find in terms of craft. You can't scare people if they see the seams.

All my movies are about people with some ideology, but guess what? It never works out.

As a filmmaker, you aspire to want to make movies that can hopefully stand the test of time, but you never know when that will happen or if that will happen.

For me, the sound design and the musical score is a big part of what makes scary movies work.

I took a break from horror I made three ghost movies back-to-back-to-back.

I'm terrified of the supernatural things, which is why I'm very grateful that I don't see things like that. Because if I did see things of the paranormal persuasion, I don't think I'd be able to continue making scary movies.

I like to think if something scares me, then there's a very good chance an audience will feel the same way. The key is creating scenarios that people can relate to.

I use myself as the barometer to gauge what is scary. I like to think if something scares me, then there's a very good chance an audience will feel the same way.