STACK #241 November 2024

MOVIE FEATURE

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M. Night Shyamalan isn’t the first filmmaker to direct his daughter in a major motion picture. Here are a few examples of dads who have given their daughters a leg up that you may not know about. DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL

Hayley Mills

Inspired by his eldest daughter Saleka - a successful concert pianist and R&B singer - filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan hopes his latest horror movie, Trap , will appeal to film fans and music lovers. Words Gill Pringle S tarring Saleka as the film’s pop star Lady Raven, Shyamalan transports audiences into an immersive concert experience A KILLER TRAP

John Huston directed Anjelica Huston in films such as A Walk with Love and Death (1969) and The Dead (1987).

Steven Spielberg directed Sasha Spielberg in films such as The Terminal (2004), Munich (2005), and The Post (2017). Dario Argento directed Asia Argento in films such as The Stendhal Syndrome (1996), Opera (1987), and Mother of Tears (2007). Martin Scorsese directed Francesca Scorsese in The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), and Hugo (2011).

Ron Howard directed Bryce Dallas Howard in a bunch of movies including Apollo 13 (1995), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), and A Beautiful Mind (2001).

where Josh Hartnett’s serial killer attends the show with his teen daughter. As security guards abruptly lock down the arena, he realises too late that the entire event is a trap laid by police to catch him. “So, my oldest daughter is a musician, and as we went around the country and different places where she's playing in concerts, we were talking about the immersive quality of going to a concert,” says Night, explaining how he first conceived the idea for Trap . “And you see a kind of culture now and how immersive that is for all these people that get swept up in the [concert] experience together. And so, she and I were talking for a long time about how to combine these two things: coming to the movies and the feeling of being at a concert,” he told a rapt audience at CinemaCon in Las Vegas a few months ago, which STACK attended. "Saleka ended up signing at Columbia Records, and has a wonderful career, and she's also a concert pianist. And so we were talking about all aspects of this, and I said: 'What if we did something together like you could take music and that experience and then you add something like a thriller to it?' “And so, after talking about this for years, we suddenly got this idea. And we said, ‘Let's do this, this is going to be amazing!’ I think my job is to make the most provocative, unusual movies for audiences so that they're riveted and they're laughing and screaming and gasping - and they want to be together when they do that.”

M. Night Shyamalan and Saleka

Old and also his TV horror series Servant . And while making her acting debut in Trap , she also wrote 14 songs for the film. As for her celebrated father, M. Night Shyamalan's passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super 8 camera at the age of eight, and he's never looked back. His provocative thriller The Sixth Sense (1999) - starring Toni Collette and Bruce Willis - brought him international acclaim 25 years ago, leading to further intriguing movies including Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004), Split (2016), and Glass (2019). As for Josh Hartnett, the Black Hawk Down (2001) and Pearl Harbor (2001) star finds himself back in demand following his recent

Josh Hartnett and Ariel Donoghue

Featuring Alison Pill, Ariel Donoghue, and even former child star Hayley Mills, making a rare appearance, the film shows the disturbing fallout as the concertgoers realise they’re at the centre of a dark and sinister event. Having grown up watching horror movies with her family, Saleka, now 28, studied

role alongside an all-star cast in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023), as well as serving up the laughs

with John Travolta and Kevin Hart in comedy Die Hart (2020-present). His twisted performance as a serial killer dubbed “The

classical piano as a child but later pursued a singing and songwriting career, going on to open for acts Boyz II Men, Baby Rose, and Summer Walker.

• Trap is out Nov 6

She began musically collaborating with her dad in 2021, writing songs for his film

Butcher” in Trap will surely keep audiences guessing..

14 NOVEMBER 2024

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