There are two things Paul Feig’s fans know to be true: He’s going to put women in the spotlight, and he’s going to do so while wearing an iconic outfit. The legendary filmmaker is responsible for the all-time great comedies Bridesmaids and Spy, among many other twisty fan favorites.

Dressed to the nines for a Zoom call with Yahoo — and who would expect anything less from a man constantly in a three-piece suit — Feig knows how to probe the mysterious corners of suburban life. His film, Another Simple Favor, the sequel to the mom-frenemy drama starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, was released in May. Now, The Housemaid, Feig’s adaptation of the delightfully trashy bestselling novel starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney, hits theaters just before Christmas.

“Anybody can make a scary movie in the dark, but if you can make a scary movie in the light, in the sunlight and in a brightly lit room, to me, that's scarier,” he says. “I find that really weird and disturbing and, in a movie, entertaining. Not in real life! It's terrible.”

Having grown up in the suburbs of Michigan, Feig saw firsthand how neighborhoods that look perfect on the outside can harbor secrets. He describes the set of The Housemaid as that of a “Nancy Meyers movie that goes horribly wrong.”

“We bring things down. We make it a little more ominous, and then lead ourselves to our pretty dark-but-satisfying ending,” Feig says.

Feig considers himself an aficionado of a truly surprising plot twist. "I love a good twist," Feig says. "Also in my martinis, I like a good twist."

Some of his favorite twisty movies: The Usual Suspects, which he calls the grandaddy of them all; The Sixth Sense, which famously electrified audiences; and Bodies Bodies Bodies, a horror comedy that manages to become even funnier with its twist. He mentions that the 2020 Invisible Man has a scene so quick and unexpected that he sat for 10 minutes afterward, saying “Oh my God!” over and over, and gave honorable mentions to the twists in the recent movies Fall and Clown in a Cornfield, which are too fresh to spoil.

“There's nothing better than going, 'Oh my God!' and having the rug pulled out from under you,” Feig adds.

Movies that Feig would gender-flip

Feig is a rare male Hollywood director who’s become known for making blockbusters that primarily foreground complicated female characters. He named his own “Mount Rushmore” of actresses that he takes inspiration from: Margaret Dumont, “straight woman” foil in many a Marx brothers movie; Katherine Hepburn, who risked her dramatic career to be goofy and over-the-top in Bringing Up Baby; Rosalind Russell, who held her own against Cary Grant in His Girl Friday; and Barbara Stanwyck, who Feig says was “powerful but accessible” in all her roles.

Feig stirred controversy in 2016 when he helmed a gender-flipped Ghostbusters starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. Since then, gender-flipping is still controversial — it forces fans to confront what they loved about original films and consider what it would be like with women in the lead roles. Sometimes it’s more effective than others — Oceans 8 landed better than He’s All That — but if anyone has gleaned lessons from his first attempt nearly a decade ago, it’s Feig.

“I'm trying to do original ideas and new ideas, but sometimes you go, 'It could be fun to dip into the old stuff and give it a flip,” Feig says. Here are three movies Feig told Yahoo Lists he would consider flipping.

Die Hard

Why not Die Hard? That could be really fun. I'd like to see one of my favorite actresses kicking ass in the Nakasame Tower [Nakatomi Plaza]. I would never say [the actress he has in mind] ... it gets me in far too much trouble.

Revenge of the Nerds

[It] could really use an update. A big update. I grew up around nerds myself, both male and female, and here we are running the world. Are we running the world? I don't know. I don't think so. Some of them are. Not mine.

Rambo

What the heck ... why not? I just want to see somebody just kicking ass, taking names, and tearing it up.