M. Night Shyamalan testified Wednesday that he and his collaborators on the Apple TV+ show "Servant" did not steal a 2013 indie film about a delusional mother and her doll.

The director told jurors that the copyright dispute with "Emmanuel" director Francesca Gregorini was "obviously 100 percent a misunderstanding."

"This allegation is completely contrary to everything I do and everything I try to stand for," Shyamalan said.

When asked repeatedly if he had plagiarized anything from the film, he said: "Absolutely not."

Gregorini sued Apple, Shyamalan and others involved in "Servant" shortly after it premiered in 2019. She claimed the show clearly borrowed key elements from her film, which depicts a nanny who colludes with her mother to mistakenly believe the doll is real. .

The federal trial began last week in Riverside, California. Gregorini said during her testimony last Thursday that she was "shocked" when she first saw a trailer for the show.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," she said. "I could basically tell that they had taken my movie and... remade it."

She claims the show occupies "the beating heart and bones of my films" while also reflecting on individual shots and sequences.

She said her agent and industry colleagues discouraged her from filing a lawsuit, but she decided to take a stand because this type of plagiarism is "rife in my industry."

“I realize that in filing this lawsuit, I will be fighting for myself, fighting for what happened to me, but also fighting for other people who may not be able to succeed in court for one reason or another, " she said. “You can’t take someone else’s work, repurpose it, and call it your own without giving credit or compensation to the creator.”

Shyamalan, a producer on "Servant" and director of the first episode, testified Wednesday that he had never seen Gregorini's film until earlier this month.

As he watched it, he said he found "everything in it was from other movies." His lawyer, Nicolas Jampol, walked Shyamalan through a series of scenes from "The Truth About Emanuel" that were similar to Shyamalan's 1999 film Similar shots were seen in the breakthrough film The Sixth Sense.

Shyamalan says he's not accusing Gregorini of stealing from him, but simply pointing out that all filmmakers share a common language.

"I don't own them. Anyone can take these shots," he said. "We're all learning from each other and the Hitchcocks and Kubricks who came before us. And they didn't invent it. It preceded them and it continues after them."

The idea for "Servant" came from writer Tony Basgallop, who testified last week that he had been working on the idea since 2005. He said he drew on his own life experiences and had never seen or heard of Gregorini's film before the lawsuit began.

Gregorini's attorney, Patrick Arends, pointed out that Basgallop didn't incorporate the doll element until 2016. Arends noted that Basgallop's career was in trouble at the time and he was in dire need of money. Arends argued that the doll was crucial to selling the script and producing it — and that it came from "Emanuel."

Shyamalan said in testimony Wednesday that he was "shocked" when he first read Basgallop's script in 2017. He said he was also excited when he learned the doll was being used to treat grieving mothers.

"I'm ecstatic," he said, adding that it's important to bring supernatural stories into real life. “Having that ladder — like in The Sixth Sense when your hair stands up and it’s a ghost — it can take you into mythology.”

Arends tried to get Shyamalan to acknowledge a series of alleged similarities between the movie and TV series. At various points, Shyamalan provided additional context to distinguish the works, so much so that Ahrendts said he "digressed" and instructed him to answer the question directly.

Arends noted that the mother character in "Servant" doesn't "wake up" and discover what happened to her child until near the end of the episode - similar to the structure of the film.

“This mystery — what happened to Jericho — I wanted to save,” Shyamalan said. "This is an important engine."

Under friendly questioning from his own attorney, Shyamalan told the jury about his time in film school, his early career and how he "figured out my language" with "The Sixth Sense." He said he was intrigued by the challenge of adapting his signature filmmaking style — what he calls “closed,” “family-focused” supernatural thrillers — to television.

"I like to suggest... leave the sentence incomplete. You ask the right question but don't answer it," he said. "We're a sushi maker. We're using the minimum ingredients and the highest quality."

He said he found the claims of infringement "confusing." He said he had not watched "Emmanuel" before because he knew he had not borrowed it, and compared it to being accused of stealing jewelry.

"I don't need to see jewelry," he said. "I didn't steal them."

Later Wednesday, the plaintiffs asked a damages expert to testify about Apple's revenue from "Servant." Apple's lawyers asked for the court to be closed, noting that the testimony would involve trade secrets such as the show's ratings data and compensation from the defendants. Judge Sanshine Sykes ordered members of the public to leave the scene to testify.

The case is expected to go before a jury later this week.