Leigh Whannell (; born 17 January 1977) is an Australian screenwriter, actor, film producer, and film director. He is best known for writing films directed by his friend James Wan, including Saw (2004), Dead Silence (2007), Insidious (2010), and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). Whannell made his directorial debut with Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), and has since directed two more films, Upgrade (2018) and The Invisible Man (2020). Whannell and Wan are the creators of the Saw franchise. Whannell wrote the first installment, co-wrote the second and third installments, was producer or executive producer for all the films, and appeared as the Adam character in three of the installments. He was also the writer of the Saw video game (2009), and co-writer of the 2014 film Cooties. Career Television Whannel was born 17 January 1977. A writer since childhood, Whannell worked as a reporter and film critic for several Australian television shows, including ABC's Recovery, a Saturday morning youth-oriented program that was hosted by Dylan Lewis. Whannell has described the show in a 2011 blog post: The result was that instead of following the usual MTV ideal of what teenagers want in a TV show—“Hey kids, coming up next we’ve got some seriously WICKED windsurfing moves!!”—Recovery managed to tap into the so-called “alternative” movement that was in full swing at the time by giving teenagers what they actually want: genuine, unpolished anarchy. Whannell had originally auditioned for the host role, but was later employed as a reporter; Whannell's first interview was with Jackie Chan and he has stated that "Recovery is the best job I've ever had ...". Whannell appeared in Episode 4, Season 1 of the RMITV production Under Melbourne Tonight presents What's Goin' On There? on 10 June 1998. Film In 2003, Whannell appeared in a minor role in The Matrix Reloaded, as well as in the video game Enter The Matrix as the character "Axel". While in film school, Whannell met James Wan. Together, the two wrote a script for what would become Saw. After making a short film in 2003 to showcase the intensity of the Saw script, the feature film version, directed by Wan, was made in 2004 and became a low-budget sleeper hit. Whannell played Adam in the film, one of the main characters. The popularity of Saw led to a sequel, Saw II, which was directed and co-written by Darren Lynn Bousman, and on