Interview: M. Night Shyamalan Talks ‘Wayward Pines’ and Why He Expanded a Young Actors Role on the Show

I talked to Shyamalan at Comic-Con in a roundtable interview where he talked about the cast, what he learned from working in TV and how young actor Charlie Tahan started out with a small part but as the story grew, so did his role.

FOX has a new limited series called Wayward Pines that looks really good. It’s got a fantastic cast and great premise that’s got me definitely interested.

The pilot was directed by M. Night Shyamalan and stars Matt Dillon, Carla Gugino, Melissa Leo, Toby Jones, Terrance Howard and Juliette Lewis and is about a Secret Service agent (Dillon) goes to Wayward Pines, Idaho, in search of two federal agents who have gone missing. He soon finds out that he may never get out of the town alive.

I talked to Shyamalan at Comic-Con in a roundtable interview where he talked about the cast, what he learned from working in TV and how young actor Charlie Tahan started out with a small part but as the story grew, so did his role.

More highlights:

  • He said they were lucky that they got the “incredible cast.”
  • Does he enjoy working in TV? “It was hard.” He had to work twice as fast.
  • He said what he learned from TV, he took to the next film that he directed.
  • He talks about creating the show bible and how the actors created their characters backstory.
  • He talks about how he needed the story to be plausible.
  • Actor Tim Griffin then sits in for a minute and tells the story of meeting Night for the first time in his audition.

Wayward Pines is coming soon to FOX.

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