While doing research for my interview with the men behind Saw, I came across a comment made by writer and actor Leigh Whannell and I knew I would be remiss not to ask about it. Whilst doing publicity for the film, Whannell had horrified one interviewer by telling him, "I would follow Cary [Elwes] around, even into the toilet. I helped shake him out after he peed!" Not the normal junket talk to be sure. When I mention the quote to Whannell, there is none of the usual publicist-coached spin control. "Yeah," he laughs, "Everything is so full service in Hollywood. I need someone to help me pee now. I have become so Hollywood."

The truth is that, despite their recent success and Whannell’s tongue-in-cheek comments, Whannell and good friend and Saw director, James Wan, are not insiders in Hollywood. What is most interesting about the pair is that they genuinely give the impression that they are enjoying their outsider status. Talking to them, I am struck by how offbeat their take is on their worlds, both inside and outside of Hollywood.

Growing up in Melbourne, Australia, Wan and Whannell became friends while attending film school. Prior to Saw, neither of the ‘W’s had much in the way of movie-making experience. Wan had never directed anything else, and besides a small role in The Matrix: Reloaded, Whannell was an unknown commodity as well. Discouraged by their lack of success in the film world, Whannell and Wan decided to take their fortunes into their own hands and produce a movie on their own.

Combining their money they realized that the film was going to have to be a low-budget project. "We had budgeted it at $40," Whannell laughs. "It was going to be filmed in my mum’s basement and was going to star our friends." I don’t inquire about the craft services they were planning on offering.

To save even more money, Whannell was living at home with his mother while writing the screenplay for Saw. In fact, Whannell had his mother do a lot of the proofreading and editing. Whannell nods, "I would come out of my room and say, ‘Mum, I just wrote a scene where a girl’s head is going to blow apart. What do you think?’" (see inset photo for the 'before' picture) When I express my shock and disbelief at his mother’s strong stomach he explains that growing up, he was "filled with teenaged angst, listening to Nine Inch Nails and writing about the gateway of hell opening up." By the time he had reached adulthood, his mother had become numbed to his dark side.

Upon the completion of Saw’s script, the boys filmed one harrowing scene and sent that scene to Lions Gate. Surprised by what they saw, Lions Gate agreed to finance Saw and gave the boys a budget of $1.2 million to make their film. Then, as if things hadn’t gotten rosy enough for the Wan and Whannell, Danny Glover, Monica Potter and Cary Elwes quickly signed on to star in the remake of their double-digit budget film. Saw was a success at the 2004 Sundance film festival, earned more critical acclaim during its theatrical release and ended up being one of the sleeper hits of 2004.

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When Saw went to Sundance, Wan and Whannell had mixed feelings about America’s premiere film festival. "It’s a really strange mix there," Wan says reflecting back on the festival’s demographics. "You’ve got some guy on the street giving out free passes to a documentary he made for $100, and then you’ve got Paris Hilton across the street in the Sprite tent getting a free goody bag."

The absurd behavior of Hollywood’s rich and famous bemused the ‘W’s throughout the duration of the film festival. Wan says, "Sundance is a beautiful ski village where once a year, all these movie stars drop in. I was looking around at all these beautiful mountains and scenery, and a woman in a fur coat and Prada boots walked by me talking on her cell phone. As she passed by, she said into her phone, ‘Sundance is hell on earth!’ I turned around and said something to her like, ‘Yeah, lady, it’s right up there with Rwanda.’"

As Wan and Whannell continued talking, I found myself pressing them for more stories about their experiences than specifically about the nuances of their film. Ironically, Wan and Whannell found it difficult to conjure up a lot of scornful anecdotes. "You have to understand," Wan says with a sly grin, "that when we went home we were telling all our filmmaker friends, ‘Yeah, you should go to Hollywood, because it’s really easy to get your film made!’" Whannell smiles and finishes, "I suppose if we had shown up with just our script and had been rejected from every place we went and never had the chance to do anything, we might feel differently about the place."

That said, the ‘W’s do confess that, having been raised on satirical and cynical Hollywood films like Sunset Boulevard and The Player it was interesting to see the standard film industry clichés — the goateed actor who takes himself too seriously, the too-chipper publicist and the slimy agent — in the flesh. "Oh, they’re all there," Whannell assures me. "And you don’t have to look particularly hard to find them, either." Whannell pauses for a beat and then says, "But you have to understand that it was really cool to see them in person."

Upon their return to the southern hemisphere, Wan and Whannell’s staunch irreverence about the Hollywood scene paid off when reality inevitably set in. Wan says, "The first day I was back Australia, a friend came up to me and said, ‘You’re an asshole!’ And I thought, ‘Aha, I’m home.’"

emily riemer