M. Night Shyamalan on how his beachy thriller Old became an obsession — and those alternative ending rumors

In M. Night Shyamalan's new horror-thriller Old (out July 23), a group of vacationers find themselves rapidly aging on a remote beach. While the writer-director's filmography is full of shocks and surprises, this adaption of Frederik Peeters and Pierre Oscar Lévy's graphic novel Sandcastle is his most relentlessly unsettling movie to date.

"I'm so addicted to pushing people out of their comfort zone," Shyamalan tells EW. "Maybe I'm becoming obsessed by it. Any choice that pushes you to not feel comfortable, then I'm like, 'That feels right, that feels right.'"

Universal Pictures Alex Wolff in 'Old'

In our spoiler-free chat below, Shyamalan discusses rumors about how he considered ending the film differently, and whether he still has sand in his shoes.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I know your daughters gave you the graphic novel Sandcastle, which I assume means that publishers now send everything they publish to your daughters. But what about this story clicked with you?

M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN: I probably was suspicious of it at first. Anything my daughters give me has, like, a magic dust on it. So if they give me a watch or pair of sneakers or whatever, I wear them as if they have magic powers — they mean so much to me. So when they gave me this graphic novel as a present it immediately meant a lot to me. So I was suspicious about how much it was affecting me for that reason.

But it stayed with me. I kept it in my bag and kept thinking about it. The graphic novel is almost picture-perfect as a trap for me because it's incredibly visual and Twilight Zone–y and it has an enigmatic ending. So you hand that to me and my mind's going tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. Something said, "Hey, finish this story, and put it up on screen." So that's what ended up happening.

Universal Pictures Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps in 'Old'

The cast is very international. I'm assuming that was a deliberate decision on your part?

It was. How can I say this? I existed before everyone became woke. My dad came to the United States, had this dream, and then his son gets so lucky and gets to do this for a living. Yet I'm an immigrant. I was born in India. I guess I never identified with that, or maybe it was something that I ran from a lot, or hid in my mind.

With Old, I was just like, "Hey, I have this incredible opportunity to cast anyone I want," because [due to] the premise of the movie, they wouldn't be from the same places in the world. It doesn't have to be a political agenda — it's just naturally what the story wants. They're from everywhere! The decision to cast an international cast, and then have them with their accents, was a really cool thing for me. Hopefully, when audiences see it, it will be something they accept and they can see themselves in people that don't look or sound like them.

Could you talk about how you aged the characters? There's actually a lot of stuff going on there.

Yeah, there is. I have a particular pet peeve: I get distracted when I see an actor wearing a lot of prosthetics [to look] older. I can never ever let go of the fact that it's XYZ actor, no matter how good the prosthetics are. I find it much easier [when] another actor's playing that age, like in The Godfather or Moonlight. I think that's psychological, that we are different at different points in our lives, so it's more accurate to cast another person rather than just put prosthetics on them.