Quotes from James Wan

The key is to constantly keep the audience surprised. If they feel like something is going to happen, or they think from an educational standpoint that something is about to happen because of all the moving parts, it is your job to break that expectation and show the audience something different.

I think, in a lot of ways, directing is puppeteering. I guess I see a lot of analogies between what puppeteers and filmmakers do. There's something about creating life out of things that have no life.

I see my actors as my collaborators.

I think I'm a very sentimental person. Conscious or not, that's what draws me to the kind of films I want to make.

If you don't do the suspense correctly, then your jump scares are not going to work.

I love high concept movies, but they can only work if the source of inspiration is really human - if they're driven by pain and strong emotions. Once you connect the audience with that, then I swear you can take them on the craziest journey, and they'll come along.

I'm such an action movie junkie that as an action fan, because action scenes are so heightened, we could never really picture ourselves in that scene. So when you're watching an action movie, you experience an action movie more outside of the aquarium: you know you're out of the aquarium looking in at all the swimming fish that are in there.

Whether it's a popcorn movie or some really intellectual sociopolitical movie, I think to some degree they're all influenced by the social climate that we're living in.

I cannot state enough how important post-production is for the success of a horror movie. You bring so much to it with the way you edit it, the way it is sound-designed, and the way the music works with it.

I've made one action movie. But nobody saw it, so I guess that doesn't count for most people.

With all the crap that's going on around the world, you kind of want to do what you can to protect the ones you love.

As a director you're always so busy - you're go, go, go, you're always moving, moving, moving - so I'm not actually privy to all the weird stuff that's happening around me, but for a lot of the cast and crew, that's what I hear stories from them about weird stuff happening.

I can make any kind of movies. I can put up with any kind of situation. And I can tackle them.

I always say it's very difficult when you're tackling something like 'Spider-Man' or 'Batman' that has been done so many times before.

Geoff Johns is super talented, super smart.

Geoff Johns is super talented, super smart. Part of what got me excited about the Aquaman character is his re-envisioning of Aquaman, the character, with 'The New 52.'

We're not just horror fans. We're film fans. I love action films. I want to do action films. I want to do romantic comedies. I love all this stuff. So, if I find the good material, I'll do it.

The stuff I'm designing, I want my action scenes to be intense.

'Insidious 2' is a direct continuation of the first movie. We literally pick up from where we left off at the end of the first film. And whereas the first movie is a twist on the haunted house genre, the second movie is a twist on the classic domestic thriller.

I definitely love to be scared. It draws the primal side out of you.

Ask anyone, and they'll tell you that most of the good horror films made in the U.S. are indie films. You might get 'The Ring' or 'The Others,' but most are independently produced.

When I am making a sequel, it needs to be different from what you have already seen. Yet, it needs to maintain a certain discipline so that people still associate it with the prequel.

No one pretty much tells me what kind of horror films to make.

I hope people will like 'The Conjuring 2' because I think it is a very natural and organic progression of the first movie.