Warning: SPOILERS ahead for the movies of M. Night Shyamalan, including Knock at the CabinHe may be at home behind the camera, but M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies in cameos and supporting character roles are abundant. In Shyamalan’s latest movie, Knock at the Cabin, he plays a man in an infomercial, and this is one of the least impactful cameos that Shyamalan has pulled off in his directorial career. Shyamalan even played the protagonist in his first-ever feature film, Praying With Anger, and has regularly appeared in roles of varying sizes ever since.
From the smallest cameos where his face is never shown on screen, to a character who is destined to be the savior of humanity, there’s no telling when Shyamalan might pop up or how significant his character might be. Though Shyamalan hasn’t appeared in every movie he’s directed (he was absent from both The Visit and After Earth), his cameos and supporting roles are frequent enough to have become an expected element in every new Shyamalan film. Here’s every character that Shyamalan has played in his own movies.
Praying With Anger – Dev Raman
For M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies, none was bigger than Praying with Anger. Made in 1992 when Shyamalan was a film student at NYU, it is the story of a young Indian American man named Dev Raman, who spends a year living in India as part of a college exchange program. Dev hopes to use the trip as an opportunity to find out more about his late father, but his American upbringing clashes with the Indian heritage that he’s trying to connect with. Shyamalan’s Praying With Anger was financed with help from his family and friends, which became an early preview of his recent approach to self-finance his movies.
The Sixth Sense – Dr. Hill
Shyamalan followed Praying With Anger with his first commercial feature, a family film called Wide Awake, but its release was buried after Shyamalan and star Rosie O’Donnell pushed back against producer Harvey Weinstein’s extensive post-production cuts. Following this trial by fire, Shyamalan came back strong with his third feature film. The Sixth Sense, which first established him as the king of the plot twist and immortalized the line “I see dead people” in pop culture history, The movie was a massive critical and commercial success that grossed over $672 million at the worldwide box office. It also contains one of Shyamalan’s best plot twists.
It also marked the first cameo role for M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies. He plays a pediatrician called Dr. Hill, who treats Cole Sear and raises concerns with his mother about the cuts and bruises on his body. Shyamalan’s scene was originally longer, and he intended it to be a tribute to his parents, both of whom are doctors. However, Shyamalan hated his acting so much that he ended up cutting most of his appearance from the final product.
Unbreakable/Split/Glass – Jai
When it comes to M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies, he played the same minor character three different times. This, of course, came in his trilogy of movies – Unbreakable, Split, and Glass. Shyamalan first appears as an unnamed character in Unbreakable, whom David Dunn realizes is a drug dealer thanks to his powers of extra-sensory perception. He returns in Split, having left his drug-dealing days behind him and established a career as a security guard, and his name is revealed to be Jai.
In his brief scene, he helps Dr. Fletcher, the psychiatrist treating Kevin Wendell Crumb, to look over some security footage. Shyamalan’s character appears again in the final chapter of the trilogy, Glass, which confirms that Jai is indeed the same man that David Dunn met all those years ago. While buying better security equipment from David Dunn’s store, motivated by the murder of Dr. Fletcher, Jai recognizes David from their encounter all those years ago.
Signs – Ray Reddy
In Shyamalan’s 2002 film Signs, Mel Gibson plays Graham Hess, a priest who has had a crisis of faith following the death of his wife. This M. Night Shyamalan appearance in movies is a small role as Ray Reddy, the man who was behind the wheel of the car that killed Graham’s wife, and who suffered greatly from guilt since the accident. After crop circles appear in his fields and aliens are spotted roaming around, Graham visits Ray for the first time since the accident. Ray tells him that he is going to the lake because “they” don’t like water, and advises Graham he has locked one of the aliens in his pantry before driving away.
The Village – Park Ranger
Shyamalan’s divisive 2004 film The Village ends with the major twist that the 19th-century village that the movie has been set in is actually inside a fenced preserve, with the 21st-century world just outside it. When the film’s blind protagonist, Ivy, ventures outside of the fence in search of medicine, she runs into one of the park rangers that patrol the preserve. He agrees to get the medicine she has asked for from one of the guard shacks, and in the following scene, Shyamalan plays the park ranger’s boss, who offers him some advice about the job.
Lady In The Water – Vick Ran
M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies ended up controversial in Lady in the Water. The movie centers around Story, a dryad-like being who emerges in the pool of an apartment complex. She explains she is there to find the Writer, a man whose mind must be awakened, so he can write a book that will lead to humanity’s salvation. The writer is Vick Ran, the character played by Shyamalan, and Story helps him finally think clearly. Vick learns his words are so powerful that they will inspire a great orator and that he will be assassinated for writing them, amplifying their influence.
The Happening – Joey
One of the hardest-to-spot M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies is in his 2008 movie The Happening, where he never appears on the screen at all. The director plays Joey, a man with whom Zooey Deschanel’s character, Alma, once ate tiramisu. Joey repeatedly tries to call Alma on her cell phone, and Shyamalan provides the voice for the character. It’s unclear whether Joey survived the outbreak of airborne toxins that cause people to violently commit suicide in the movie.
The Last Airbender – Prison Camp Firebender
In the big-budget disaster that was The Last Airbender, Shyamalan apparently has a cameo as one of the Fire Nation prison guards in the scene where Zuko (disguised as the Blue Spirit) breaks Aang out of prison. Without a close-up of his face, it’s unclear which of the soldiers Shyamalan plays, though he may be the fire bender who appears silhouetted in a doorway and flings fire at Zuko and Aang at the very start of the fight.
Old – Hotel Van Driver
M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies included his role as an unnamed van driver in Old. Despite his character remaining unnamed, Shyamalan has a fairly substantial role as the driver who transports unsuspecting resort guests to the cursed beach and then monitors them from a cliff that overlooks the beach. He appears in a scene towards the start of Old, in which he gives directions to the families and hands them oddly over-sized hampers full of food, and returns at the end when he reports to the resort manager that all the test subjects are dead (or so he thinks).
Knock At The Cabin – Infomercial Host
When it comes to M. Night Shyamalan appearances in movies, sometimes they are there to call attention to something in the plot. He appears in Knock at the Cabin, but not alongside any of the characters. As the film takes place in a secluded area, he stays out of the action but still found a way to show up in a cameo on a TV screen. When Leonard wanted to turn on the TV to show Eric and Andrew the apocalypse was underway, the TV quickly showed Shyamalan in an infomercial where he was hawking an air fryer. This led to the actual news report that moved the story forward.
