The James Wan Interview

By Samantha Schorsch

February 11, 2026

In partnership with

For the final Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, there were several legacy screenings of some of the most important and influential films to come out of the festival over its tenure. One of these films was the 2004 indie-horror masterwork, SAW. Before the screening, I sat down with James Wan to discuss his memories of Sundance, SAW itself, and how he sees his career over two decades later. 

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Sam Schorsch (DG): Well, first off, congratulations on your legacy screening. 

James Wan: Thank you. It's very exciting to be here. It's an honor, actually, to be asked to come back to do this. 

DG: So, how was your experience working on the 4k remaster?

James Wan: That was great to do. I haven't done anything so related, at least with the first movie, in a very long time.

So going back into the colorist lab to go through the film and go through all of that was a trip down memory lane. It was really cool to go and do it. But the best thing about it was now having the technology to do all the things to color the movie that I didn't really have 22 years ago, you can imagine how much technology has changed in that period of time, and it was very cool that I could actually go in and actually have a little bit more control than I did the first time around.

DG: Does it make you want to get back into things that are SAW-related after playing with it with new technology like that? 

James Wan: Well, I am potentially doing/tackling the next SAW movie. So the answer is yes.

DG: How does it feel seeing the impact it’s had in over 20 years? 

James Wan: Incredible. When Leigh Whannell and I set out to make the first movie, we thought that we were making a movie straight-to-video. In early 2000, the straight-to-video market was a big marketplace, the whole DVD movement. So we're very thankful that it didn't go straight to DVD, that the movie came out theatrically, and that it caught on the way it did. So very, very happy for it.  

DG: What lessons from making SAW do you think you took forward into your career?   

James Wan: I took a lot of lessons. Definitely, in every movie I make, I've learned something that I then pilot into the next one. And with SAW being my first movie, I was very young, very naive, you know, I wasn't sure, like just little things here and there. I wasn't aware of, you know, the big sort of engine or the infrastructure for making a movie, right? Like a feature film with proper crews. Because up until then, I only made movies with my friends, and then we had two or three people behind the scenes. But to make a movie with a proper crew, even though it was a low-budget film, I learned a lot about what that entails and how to use that for my next movie. 

DG: So, this might be a little out of left field, but I've noticed in rewatches [of SAW] that it kind of reminds me of if the horror genre had its version of Waiting for Godot. I was wondering what you thought about that sort of conspiracy theory.

James Wan: I love that because I literally was just in New York, and I went to see Keanu doing his Waiting for Godot. I love this connection. I guess it is kind of like that, but I think more than anything, it's probably a little bit closer to MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, right? Very close.

I mean, it's close to two guys sitting around chatting, and that's essentially what SAW is: two guys sitting around in a grimy bathroom with their legs chained to opposite sides of the bathroom, and if they don't get out by a certain time, they get killed.

But that's very much the spirit of the type of movies we were making in the late '90s, early 2000s, right? We were very much inspired by all the great indie filmmakers that came out of Sundance in the '90s, like your Robert Rodriguez, your Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Soderbergh, you know, all these guys that came out of that period. So going into it, we knew we wanted to make somewhat of a drama movie, but couch it within a genre frame so that we could actually sell the movie easier if that makes sense. 

DG: Totally. And how was that first Sundance experience with showing SAW off? 

James Wan: Uh, very nerve-wracking. My biggest memories of Sundance from 2004 are just how nervous we were. We were just two young kids at a film festival with our very first movie. We were very young and naive and didn't know any better, but we were super, super nervous.

And I was extra nervous because I felt that the movie I had initially envisaged in my head didn't quite reflect the movie that I wanted to make, because the movie I wanted to make was more expensive. You know, I wanted to make something more Hitchcockian, more David Fincher, and I just didn't have the budget to support that, so I ended up making something more the other direction in the sense that I had to lean more into the grittiness and the scrappy quality about it, shoot from the hip, if you will, and so it ended up being that kind of movie and that became ironically the aesthetic for the entire franchise. 

DG: It definitely grimes up good, as grimes they say. 

James Wan: The subject matter lent itself to the grimy aesthetic, yes.

DG: What was it like working with Cary Elwes and having him be in a morally gray role?

James Wan: It's good, you know? It's always more exciting to play with characters that have flaws because, you know, if everyone's a goody-two-shoes, then the movie would be pretty boring.  

DG: You can't have Westley in the basement. 

James Wan: That’s the other thing, for my first movie to have Westley, to have Cary Elwes, to have Danny Glover, Ken Leung, Shawnee Smith, who I loved growing up, and Tobin Bell, whom I was a big fan of for a while, you know, just all the great character actor work that he was doing in that period. I mean, it was a dream come true for my first movie that I managed to get all these really great character actors. I think they did bring a lot of legitimacy to the project.

DG: Are you looking forward to the screening tonight?

James Wan: I think so. I mean, I'm not the young kid I was 22 years ago.

I've done quite a few things since then. I've done a lot of these sorts of screenings. But, you know, having said that, it’ll be interesting to see if I'll have any kind of PTSD as I'm introducing the film. But I don't think I can sit through the movie again. I think I'll be out in the lobby pacing back and forth. 

DG: How does it feel to be at the last Sundance in Park City? 

James Wan: Really bittersweet. Very full circle, but very bittersweet to be here.

You know, very honored to come back and to be invited back to do this, and say goodbye to Park City. You know, Park City/Sundance was my very first mainstream festival, so it's kind of cool to be back here to be able to say goodbye to it.

DG: Have you run into filmmakers in your career who have cited SAW as an inspiration for their work? 

James Wan: I think I have. I don't know anyone off the top of my head right now, but I do meet younger filmmakers who would tell me that they're fans of my body of work and that they admire the story behind how we started.

I think it's aspirational in that regard, just like it was aspirational for me to look up to people like Robert Rodriguez when he made EL MARIACHI or Kevin Smith with CLERKS, right? It's like, I looked up to those filmmakers, and now the younger generation is looking at people like myself. So you have to pass the baton, right? Moving with the march of time. 

DG: Yeah, you’ve definitely become sort of a juggernaut in your own right at this point. 

James Wan: Well, I kind of see myself more as a statesman these days. Like, I definitely enjoy helping young upcoming filmmakers or just upcoming filmmakers in general and giving them a shot to do what they want to do. I do enjoy that process.

It allows me to still be involved in movies but without, you know, the heavy headache of needing to direct, because it's so stressful.

DG: One last question, do you think you would ever go back to something like DEAD SILENCE? 

James Wan: You mean like DEAD SILENCE specifically, or just something like that kind of movie?  

DG: DEAD SILENCE specifically, because that felt like almost a blend between the aesthetics of SAW and the aesthetics that your films have now. 

James Wan: Yes, I definitely have aspirations to go back and make something more like my earlier stuff. 

DG: Awesome! Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you, and I hope you have a good Sundance.

James Wan: Thank you. 

Editor’s note: James Wan working on a new SAW film was confirmed at the Legacy screening that night. 

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