Patrick Wilson on the old-school horror of Insidious, Aquaman sequel and why he loves Australia

Actor Patrick Wilson has revealed why he loves Australia and why he’s ready to take the next step in his movie career.

Patrick Wilson might have been surrounded by Australian energy while shooting his new horror movie Insidious: The Red Door – but he’s glad he didn’t have to come here to make it.

However, his two teenage boys with wife Dagmara Dominczyk, who played the wily PR guru Karolina on the hit HBO drama Succession, beg to differ.

“If it were up to my children, we’d probably be there right now,” he says with a laugh over Zoom call from New York.

In addition to his long-time partnership with Aussies James Wan, Leigh Whannell and Rose Byrne in the Insidious franchise, Wilson and his family spent more than five months on the Gold Coast in 2017 while they were making the $1.5 billion smash Aquaman, in which he played the titular superhero’s half-brother and nemesis Orm.

He reprised the role for the long-awaited sequel to be released in December, (like the first, directed by Wan) which relocated to London for the shoot and while he says he loved his time here in the sun, part of him is relieved not have to make the daylong trip from his home in New Jersey. Though he’s keen to come back to shoot some day and “maybe stay in Byron Bay or something” – a recent visit to New Zealand reminded of just how brutal the journey can be.

“I certainly adore the country … and I got nothing but love for the Aussies but to be honest, as great as it is, I think going anywhere on the other side of the world for six months is difficult for the rest of your life,” he says. “I feel like I’ve done that flight way too much.”

US actor Patrick Wilson (2R), his wife Polish-US actress Dagmara Dominczyk, and family arrive for the screening of Insidious: The Red Door in New York last month. Picture: Angela WEISS/AFP

“But I really did love it there and I my wife was in Succession with Sarah Snook – so there’s another one in our crew that’s from your side of the world. I hate dealing in stereotypes, but I do find more than not there’s an openness and thriving to live that I find with most Australians, probably because the majority of your cities are on the water. And I think there’s definitely something to that. As a guy who grew up in Florida on the beach, I get it.”

Wilson, who has mixed acclaimed dramas such as Little Children and Fargo with blockbusters including Watchmen and The A-Team since making the leap from Broadway musicals nearly 20 years ago, has formed a formidable partnership with Wan and has played a key role in three of his successful franchises.

Apart from the Insidious and Aquaman movies, Wilson is also one of lead actors in the hugely successful The Conjuring universe, in which he has played paranormal investigator Ed Warren three times, battling all manner of demons, spooks and spectres.

So when it came time to fulfil his long-held ambition of directing his own feature film in The Red Door, Wilson was glad be in a world he knew intimately and to have Wan and Whannell, who had both directed earlier chapters, by his side as producer and writer respectively.

“It was a massive step up because I just hadn’t directed before,” he says. “My film school has been on the fly in the past 20 years of doing this, so I am so fortunate really to have this opportunity because it just seemed like the perfect fit.”

Director/Actor Patrick Wilson and Ty Simpkins on the set of Insidious: The Red Door

Despite their success, Wilson says that Insidious movies are “small”, making them the perfect launch point for his directing journey. In a twist on the old haunted house premise, the films focus on a haunted child, who becomes a magnet for all manner of tormented souls from an other-worldly and terrifying dimension called The Further.

Wan and Whannell, off the back of their scarily successful Saw films, famously made the first chapter for US$1 million, creating an atmosphere of menace and some top-notch jump scares by using clever lighting, inventive make-up and costumes, wonky camera angles and a very hardworking smoke machine. It went on to make US$100 million but even with bigger budgets available for the sequels, they retained a very lo-fi approach that Wilson was keen to continue.

“It was a different feel but I wanted to honour the legacy that they had built,” he says. “I knew that I’d have the confidence and the support, which is really all you want as a director because you’re constantly asked to compromise.”

A pictured shared online by Aquaman director James Wan shows him with cast members (from left) Patrick Wilson, Amber Heard, (Wan) and Jason Momoa.

Wilson says that The Red Door, the fifth film in the franchise that also includes two prequels, is more expansive than its predecessors. Set ten years after the events of the second film, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), the child from the first film is now grown up and has moved away to college. But both he and his father, Wilson’s character Josh, are still dealing with supernatural occurrences that had been suppressed through hypnosis, necessitating more spooky excursions into The Further.

After so many chapters – and subsequent shows such as Stranger Things with a similar aesthetic – Wilson knew he needed to come up with something new, but wanted to keep a grounded approach rather than try to spend millions that he didn’t have on special effects.

“Audiences have moved on but that kernel of practical effects is always in my blood,” he says. “Any VFX that we had in the movie, I would pull it back to say ‘if we can’t do it practically, it better look practical,’ period, end of story. Because that’s what I care about as an audience member – it’s VFX riddled I tune out.”

Insidious: The Red Door is in cinemas now.

Originally published as Patrick Wilson on the old-school horror of Insidious, Aquaman sequel and why he loves Australia