This time, don’t expect a twist.
Famous for the shocker revelations that concluded “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable,” writer-director M. Night Shyamalan is quick to confirm that his latest, the alien-invasion thriller “Signs,” won’t feature what many think of as his usual kind of wrap-up.

“As long as the ending is momentous and kind of surprising, it doesn’t have to be the ‘oh, it was all a dream’ kind of a thing,” the 31-year-old filmmaker explains. “So in that respect, it isn’t a twist [in “Signs”]. But … everything definitely happens in the last 10 minutes of the movie.”

“Signs” is the tale of a widowed ex-minister (Mel Gibson) who holes up in a Pennsylvania farm with his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and two children while a very real war of the worlds rages outside. What the new film does share with its two immediate Shyamalan-directed predecessors is a willingness to use the paranormal to explore shattered characters.

“The Sixth Sense” seemed to explode out of nowhere in 1999, grossing $293.5 million in North America and making Shyamalan a tough-to-pronounce household name. But the director’s road to fame was longer (and stranger) than some might think. His first two directorial efforts – the little-seen “Praying with Anger” (in which he also starred) and the Catholic-school dramedy “Wide Awake” (in which Rosie O’Donnell plays a nun) – were intensely personal, but generated little “heat” and even less revenue. His next screenplay – “Labor of Love,” about a man walking across America in honor of his dead wife – sold for a reported $750,000, then languished in development hell. (He’s since turned down offers to direct that script, saying today, “It’s not ‘me’ any longer. … I’ve got so many stories to tell.”) Shyamalan also did time in Hollywood’s rewrite trenches, adapting “Stuart Little” and even “punching up” the Prinze/Lillard teen comedy “She’s All That” – all while scripting “Sixth Sense” on spec.

“Signs” opens Aug. 2. We caught Shyamalan for a few minutes between bouts with the film’s final mix; here’s what he had to say about surprise endings, sci-fi clichés, and pleasing an audience.

Do you worry that people have come to expect a “twist” from you?
You know, I never even really thought about it. From our screenings of the movie – we’ve only had one screening in Iowa and one in New Jersey, and they both went exceptionally well – a couple of the cards said, “I expected a twist, but this was great anyway!”

You know, [the ending] is “surprising” in the sense that people were clapping as it starts to unravel, so it still has that deep-satisfaction feeling.

And the ending delves deeply into religious issues, if early reports are to be believed.
Yeah. It’s true. The movie’s deeply about faith.

A friend of mine noted that, on your last three films, including this one, you’ve taken actors noted mainly for their action-movie work and you pull very strong performances out of them. What will Mel Gibson bring to “Signs”?
It is funny, because these guys were first introduced to me in their iconic forms – in “Die Hard” and “Lethal Weapon.” And it’s funny that they’re now playing the straight-drama guys in my movies.
You know, for Mel, it was the sense of that guy on the couch in “Lethal Weapon” – the guy with a gun in his mouth who’s going to kill himself while looking at the photo of his wife who’s passed away. That is so much of that character in “Signs.”

Mel’s playing a fallen minister in “Signs,” right?
He’s retired after his wife’s passed away. And the movie’s about how a man with a lack of faith deals with these massive events that are happening around the world.

Is it true, as I’ve read on movie-rumor Web pages, that you initially wanted Clint Eastwood for the role?
Oh, no. No. [laughs] I never even thought of him for the part. I guess that’s an interesting idea. I like him. He’s a good guy.

“Signs” takes a sort of counterprogrammatic stance in that you show the effects of a rural family watching the alien invasion happening elsewhere.
[laughs] Right.

Do you show any aliens in the movie?
Well, you’ll have to come see it. [laughs]

What led you to tackle that restrained, rural-family-watching-from-the-outside approach?
That’s what really drew me to making the movie, was that kind of feeling of never leaving the house – the opposite of “Independence Day,” basically.

This is the un-”Independence Day.”
[laughs] Well, it’s steeped, obviously, in Orson Welles and listening to “War of the Worlds” on the radio – the effect of what you hear and the family’s reaction to it, that kind of thing. But definitely the audience gets to get into the … the meat of it by the end of the movie.

How do you depict an alien invasion and keep it fresh, given how many times this has been depicted in literature and film?
Well, you know, I like that – I like that there’s so much to play on. I like that with ghosts, and comic books, and with alien invasions, it’s so steeped with stereotypes that if [the characters] hear a quirky theory about it from a neighbor or something, it’s fun. Because the neighbor can spout all the stupid stuff you’ve ever heard about alien invasions, and your smart characters are like, “Well, this is ridiculous. Come on – this guy’s obviously lost his mind.” But now you’ve got all that information – that B-film information – but it came through from unreliable sources in the movie … but those guys all turn out to be right. So you basically drop legitimate, grounded characters into a B-movie – and how would they react?

So you give the crackpot the voice of authority.
Yeah. And the main characters – you know, the Joaquins, the Mels and all these guys – they all have the knowledge we have, which is, “All these stupid alien movies – this is ridiculous. This isn’t really happening. This is obviously some farce.”

“I’m not a superhero,” for example.
Yeah, exactly. Just keep on playing that. And I love that the main characters aren’t ignorant of all the information about ghosts and comic books and aliens. In this movie, that’s used a lot for humorous purposes.

Which leads into my next question: From what I’ve heard, this movie makes two major departures from your previous two films: First, “Signs” is packed with a lot more humor than “Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable.”
Yeah. It’s just packed, wall-to-wall. And I think it’s a very special kind of humor that we haven’t really seen in a lot of movies recently – which is nervous humor. Because the movie is basically one line of suspense from the beginning to the end, I put in a little joke that’s a ‘four’ and they laugh at it like it’s an ‘eight,’ you know? They’re just so dying to express something, because they’re tense, their arms have been clenched to this arm seat for so long. And it’s a great balance of release/tension, release/tension – and it’s also a great way to keep you not taking yourself too seriously until it’s time to take yourself seriously.

Another reported deviation in “Signs” from your previous two movies is that it starts out as a very open film – it’s less claustrophobic in nature, at least at the beginning.
You know, it’s interesting you say that, because it all ends up being in one house – it’s very “The Birds”-like. The movie’s very much the 2002 cousin of “Night of the Living Dead” and “The Birds,” you know?

So it starts out open and then it becomes –
– tighter and tighter and tighter.

Now it seemed to me that, in your last two films, there was kind of a tightness all the way through.
Yeah, it could be. Could be. You know, it’s just kind of intensely getting into the characters’ perspectives. This one, I take it more from the family’s perspective. You know, you really love the four members of this nuclear family – I mean, they each have their moments. Of course, Mel’s the lead and Joaquin’s a very close costar, but the four members of the family are treated like one personality who you really, really like.

Now, I’ve heard that you gave yourself a part in “Signs” that’s more substantial than in your other films, other than “Labor of Love,” in which you starred –
Not “Labor of Love.” “Praying with Anger.”

In “Praying with Anger,” sorry -
My very first movie, in India, right. The no-money one, right.

[laughs] But your role in “Signs” is pretty substantial this time out. [Shyamalan reportedly plays a shell-shocked man who accidentally killed his wife while fighting an alien.]
Yeah. I mean, it’s still just a character part. It wouldn’t qualify as anywhere near a supporting part or anything like that. I’m only on screen for five minutes – but that’s a lot, you know? I guess the equivalent level of part in the other movies would be, like, the father who sees the videotape in “Sixth Sense.”

You know, I get to write every day. I get to direct. The acting thing is something I really love – I just don’t get to practice as much as the other two facets of my work, but it’s something that I really enjoy doing. It’s all different ways to express yourself.

In this particular role, I emotionally connected with the role. It’s kind of an emotional part, actually.

You’ve had a pretty interesting arc to your career in the sense that you actually started out acting –
Doing all these things, right –

- then you went into this phase where you were just writing and rewriting movies. What was the teen movie you worked on? …
Oh, my God. Don’t mention it! [laughs]

I think it was “She’s All That,” wasn’t it?
Oh, God! [laughs]

But you sort of went though those trenches, and then you came out on the other end and you have sort of the same privileges that you had when you were a very tiny filmmaker.
Yeah – it’s kind of like when you’re totally not powerful at all and nobody cares about your movies, you can do whatever you want. And now, when you have a lot of “weight,” you know, you can do it again.

But that’s something that I definitely wouldn’t want to abuse. That’s why I’ve been very careful to take the careful steps – especially with acting in the movies. I want to not hurt the movie. I really want to bring color to the movies – “color” meaning that everybody isn’t white, you know what I mean?

Especially in a movie about something that’s globally happening. I’ve had other Indians in my movies, as well, besides myself.

Me doing that scene made the movie so personal to me, you know – because I risk so much to do it. To do an emotional scene in one of your movies is a big deal, you know? I just want to take it a little bit at a time and not overstep my bounds – because, obviously, people can get really nasty. [laughs]

In almost every interview I’ve read with you, people always talk about your confidence. And that confidence is obviously very hard-earned – you made “Praying with Anger” and “Wide Awake” and wrote “Labor of Love,” which were not conventional successes.
No, they weren’t.

But you kept soldiering on, and you told Creative Screenwriting about how you “take responsibility” for everything you’ve made – and learn from your mistakes.
Yeah. You know, there’s a difference between cockiness and confidence. Confidence is where, you know, you practice shooting all by yourself for 15 hours straight, you practice shooting for five hours every night – and then, when the game comes, you have confidence that you’re going to make the shot. And whether you make it or not, your body doesn’t change temperature, you don’t get anxious. You go, “I’ve done this.”

Cockiness is very different. “I can’t fail.” That’s not the point. Certainly I’m going to fail and succeed at the same ratio that I would if I weren’t confident – it’s just that I’m going to learn from my mistakes and take responsibility for it if an audience didn’t like this or didn’t like that.

I thought that was a fascinating stance to take, because so much of Hollywood is stereotypically about not taking responsibility.
Yeah. You know, my goal is to be the “audience filmmaker” – the best filmmaker for the audience. One day, if they took a poll, I want them to say that their favorite filmmaker is me – and that’s because I have the highest respect for them and I listen to them, and I keep changing and adapting to what our relationship is. If they choose to go out on a date with me on a Friday night, to hear that voice tell this story, I want to hear what they think – “too slow,” “too fast,” “too philosophical,” “too somber,” too whatever-it-is. Even if the other people would dismiss it as, “The audience is too stupid.” I don’t believe that.

Like young Spielberg, you don’t shy away from emotion and playing to audiences. Do you resist the cynicism that pervades many modern films?
Oh, definitely. It’s so tempting, because, you know, if a character gets bad news or whatever, if you stay in the wide shot it has a certain effect, and if you do the push-in, it has a certain effect, and if you do the close-up, it has a certain effect. If they say something, it has a certain effect. But it’s dangerous. To make strangers feel emotion is like, “Holy shit!” You’re getting into very dangerous territory, you know? They’ll laugh freely, you know, even scream freely – but to cry? You’re touching the deepest core possible, and if you want to go there you have to be brave and take risks and know that you’re going to dance a line that’s very, very, very dangerous.

You grew up in Catholic schools, but your religion’s Hindu. How has that juxtaposition affected your worldview?
I think it just makes me more universal in my approach to faith or religion, you know, even to moviemaking – because I’m so aware of what people believe on either side of the globe, 10,000 miles away from each other. Where I was born and where I live are on exact opposite places on the globe, and that gives me a great perspective to make movies.

Do you see any conflict between your Hindu roots and the supposed “rationality” of American movies?
[laughs] No. Again, I think everybody – the kid pumping gas here, the guy driving the Rolls Royce, the kid in the village in India – there’s things that connect them all emotionally. And those are the things that I want at the core of my movies. And so the more that I can hang on to those diverse perspectives, the more I’ll find that commonality and be able to tell stories with the right language.

You know, it’s not a coincidence that, most of the time, the movie that explodes here explodes in Germany and in Japan and in France and in India, you know what I mean? Because there’s some common theme that’s igniting them that makes them excited, sad, happy – whatever it is.

You said (jokingly?) in an interview once that you thought, just prior to the release of “Unbreakable,” that you might have cracked the formula for creating blockbusters.
That wasn’t like that. The people at Premiere, they always love to twist it.

This is exactly how it happened: This guy in London was interviewing me after “Sixth Sense,” and I said, “You know, I have these theories about filmmaking that I employed, after the failures of my first two movies, on ‘Sixth Sense.’ And I want to keep evolving … . It’s just a set of beliefs about storytelling and why things work. And I think I have this set and I understand the basics of that set. And I can choose to break them to do something – but I understand that set now, and I can use it.”

And he said, “Is it like a secret?” And I said, “Well, it’s definitely something that connects all these successful movies and successful moments in movies that falls into this theorem that I have about filmmaking.”

And so he loved it and wrote that – and he actually wrote a beautiful article. But obviously everybody here kind of wrote that I had a “formula.”

Is it a “formula for blockbusters”? I’d say it’s definitely a connection with audiences. And if “Signs” goes out and becomes a gigantic movie like “Sixth Sense,” then everyone will say, “Yeah! He’s right!” But it isn’t even about that – it’s about my using that formula and using those theorems, and deciding what to use and what not to use, and how it evolves and how you can push it. Maybe one day when I’m 75 years old I’ll write it all down in a book and sell it.

But you’ll hang on to it until then, right?
Yeah! [laughs]

You told Premiere that “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was a powerful, life-changing film experience for you.
Yeah. Big-time.

Is it strange, now, to have Spielberg using the actor you “discovered,” Haley Joel Osment? Is it strange to meet Lucas and Spielberg as peers?
Well, it’s amazing. It’s just an amazing thing. And when they asked me to write “Raiders 4,” I turned it down, but it was very cool. It would be wrong of me to try to re-live something that happened to me when I was 12 or 13 – I want to create that for new people. That’s my job now. My job isn’t to be like totally obsessed and be a fan – I want to be a leader.

Your old professors at NYU film school have said that, even back then, you were fiercely protective of your material. And I’m wondering where that instinct toward pride of ownership comes from.
Well, partly back then it was fear of getting ridiculed. [laughs] Now it’s more a fear of getting copied. [laughs]

Already, I can see the influence of movies that are successful in the next crop of movies the next year. Clearly “The Others,” but in like “Vanilla Sky” and, like, “Mulholland Drive” – you know, a whole bunch where the characters realize something at the end? You could sense that there are people who have been influenced by the things that I’ve been doing, that people have been doing.

And that’s very cool, very exciting. But now it’s one of those things like, if people heard that I was writing a movie about “War of the Worlds” or aliens, then there would be like 18 films in development about it.

Sure. Actually, I think there are.
[laughs] And now they might do it – but at least I’ll be the first one in the theaters and everyone will know who was the original.