M. Night Shyamalan takes on 'Last Airbender'

M. Night Shyamalan built his directing career on thrillers. But with The Last Airbender — his just-released adaptation of the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender — he's not seeing dead people or crop-circle signs.

Shyamalan recently spoke about the film, which stars newcomer Noah Ringer and Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel. Yes, he has very strong opinions about the controversy over whether enough Asian actors have been cast in a movie based on a series with an anime sensibility.

Members of the press have been getting a lot of e-mails from the Racebending group, an online community of Last Airbender fans who have expressed their concerns about the lack of Asian actors in the film. What is your response to that?

They're misguided.

Okay

They're aware I'm Asian, right?

I would think so.

And that Dev's Asian, and (actor) Assif (Mandvi)'s Asian, and everybody's, I mean—it's incredible to think that there's a correct Asian here. They don't own this series. They don't own all these cultures. The word avatar is a Sanskrit word. So it's all cultures that are put together. There's no correct background here. They should ask: Why does Noah Ringer look like a duplicate — a duplicate — of the cartoon guy? Why? He's a dupe. Anime is based on ambiguous facial features. It's meant to be interpretive. It's meant to be inclusive of all races, and you can see yourself in all these character. ... The irony that they would label this with anything but the greatest pride, that the movie poster has Noah and Dev on it and my name on it. I don't know what else to do.

Does it offend you that they're defining Asian in what you perceive as a limited way when you consider yourself Asian?

I think it's convenient for their argument. Their issue isn't with me. Their issue is with the artists who invented anime. The story of The Last Airbender is an ambiguous story. These cultures are not defined. There is no Inuit woman who looks like (the character) Kitara. That's not the reality of things. That's not the way they're drawn. Talk to the people who drew them. ...I'm actually doing a very culturally diverse movie. In fact, I believe it's the most culturally diverse tent pole movie ever made.

Last Airbender is a departure from the thrillers that have defined your career until now. Why did you decide that this was the right project to take on in order to move your work in a new direction?

It's been always bubbling, this idea of doing some kind of epic, a larger scale story that's not contemporary and doesn't stay in the thriller genre. And it kind of fell into place by chance with my daughter watching this mythology and getting kind of hooked, and then me getting hooked as well and feeling like somebody had taken all of my interests and put them into one movie.

To what degree do you pay attention to: a. reviews or b. the box office? Do you feel any kind of — especially on that last point — sense of pressure as far as how much revenue the movie brings in?

Generally I'm pretty good about both of those things. I don't really chase them. It'll be what it's going to be. I have kind of a belief in the movies, in my approach, in the integrity of my approach to making movies, and hope that that will win the day in a long-term way on the first point. And in the second point, that inherently the things that interest me generally interest people, you know, on a broader scale And they're not as specific, let's say. Those same interests — whether it's aliens, the supernatural, however you want to put it — they tend to interest a large group of people. ...I'm not good at chasing. I don't like to chase an audience. You can smell when someone is chasing an audience and it's not good.

You found Noah Ringer, who plays Aang, the Last Airbender, via a casting call. What spoke to you about him?

My secret to all casting, and specifically kids, is cast good human beings. ... I'm not casting a chameleon who can become a million different things. I just want them to be them. And I want them to put themselves in these circumstances but I want their humanity to come out. This kid is just a good human being. And literally I would give him my life, I think so much of him. And his parents, who are just amazing. That's who you want there. He's a homeschooled kid and he's very pure, incredibly dedicated and thoughtful and loyal. ...We wouldn't want a kid pretending to do that, we want a kid who is that.