The Watchers Stars Explain How They Adapted Characters From A.M. Shine’s Novel

The Watchers is being released exclusively in theaters next week, and the new horror film was adapted from the novel by A. M. Shine. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with the film’s director, Ishana Night Shyamalan, in addition to stars Dakota Fanning (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Georgina Campbell (Barbarian). During the interviews, Fanning and Campbell revealed how they approached bringing book characters to life.

“I usually go more with the script just because ultimately that’s what you are bringing to life,” Fanning explained. “I think it’s so lucky that this story has such a great book behind it to be inspired by and the source material is so excellent. I met the writer A.M. Shine of the book and he was awesome. And so he created such a great world to make this movie off of. But I usually focus more on the script. I feel like if you’re doing something that’s in the book, but maybe it’s not necessarily relevant to the story … just can be kind of complicated to mix them. So I usually focus on the script.”

“Yeah, I read the book before I took my meeting, so I just wanted to kind of get more of an understanding, and it’s great to be able to look at more of a reference of the character, but Ciara, you don’t find out that much about her,” Campbell explained. “You’re only from her perspective for one chapter of the book, which gave me a lot of freedom to be able to also build upon her, which was really nice because actually when A.M. Shine came to the set, he was like, ‘Oh my God, you’ve made Ciara really interesting. She’s kind of annoying in the book.’”

“I think that compassion and that kind of sweetness and she really just wants to take care of people and sometimes to her detriment, but I think that’s kind of a lovely, she’s kind, she’s a kind person, which is good,” Campbell added of her character. 

What Is The Watchers About?

The Watchers follows an artist (Fanning) named Mina “who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland.” Mina eventually finds shelter, but she “unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.” 

The film also stars Oliver Finnegan (Creeped Out, Outlander) and Olwen Fouere (The Northman, The Tourist). Joining writer/director Shyamalan behind the camera are director of photography Eli Arenson (Lamb, Hospitality), production designer Ferdia Murphy (Lola, Finding You), editor Job ter Burg (Benedetta, Elle), and costume design by Frank Gallacher (Sebastian, Aftersun). The music is by Abel Korzeniowski (Till, The Nun). The film is produced by M. Night Shyamalan, Ashwin Rajan, and Nimitt Mankad. The executive producers are Jo Homewood and Stephen Dembitzer.

“Well, it was very much just imagining what the four or five of these people were like, and what they would be like together. Then, as the continual lesson that I learned during the filmmaking process, there’s just a certain alchemy that happens,” the filmmaker revealed during a Q&A in which ComicBook.com was in attendance. “If you’re lucky enough to catch it, you do. With this path, there were all these movements that just led to this group being together. They have such an electric energy when they’re all together. It’s really, really cool. It’s so fun. It felt like theater!”  

The Watchers lands in theaters on June 7th.