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Born in 1966, Bryan Singer was friends with actor Ethan Hawke in childhood. He graduated from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School in New Jersey in 1984. He graduated in 1989 from USC cinema school. In a 1998 lawsuit, he was accused of hanging around the school to pick up male lovers. Singer's production company, Bad Hat Harry Productions, was named after a line in Jaws (1975), one of his favorite movies. Singer met composer/editor/director John Ottman at USC School of Cinema-Television. Brian attended The School Of Visual Arts in New York City for a brief period of time but did not graduate from there. He visited the school in October 2000 to talk to the film students about his experiences in the film industry. The extras were told they'd wear Speedo-style swim trunks or a towel in the shower scene. Once on set, they were told to wear flesh-colored g-strings. That made many of the boys uncomfortable. According to lawsuits filed a few weeks later, the boys, promised their roles wouldn't involve nudity, were asked by Singer to strip. The youths stood around naked for more than four hours as the cameras rolled and an "obviously homosexual" set photographer snapped pictures of them in "indecent positions," their lawsuits allege. The crew subjected them to "ogling, leering, and suggestive glances." The lawsuits claims the boys were subjected to sexual harassment, invasion of privacy, false imprisonment, and other outrages by Singer and his crew. (New Times LA cover story by Jack Cheevers and Mark Ebner, 7/2/98) Apt Pupil's screenwriter Brandon Boyce told New Times LA: "It's an absolute smear job. I think [Rub and Gordon are] trying to blackmail people based on their sexuality...[They're] saying, 'we know you're gay [and] you better do this or everybody's gonna know you're gay.' " |