I’ve met Bryan Singer twice.
The first time, he came as a guest judge for a student film competition at my school. This was before X-Men had come out, but he must have been in the middle of post, so it was pretty cool that he came by. Of course, at this point, Singer had had only one successful movie (and that was mostly due to its twist ending, not his work), and one flop. Plus, there hadn’t been a successful comic book movie in at least five years; there had never been a really successful Marvel comic movie.
Even though we film students looked up to him, things weren’t looking too great for our Mr. Singer.
After the competition, some students invited him back to the dorms. They were taking bets whether the “BJS” carved into one of their beds was, in fact, Bryan’s initials, from when he was a film student.
That’s how Bryan Singer wound up drinking beers with a bunch of my friends in the freshman dorms. At one point, someone put The Usual Suspects into the DVD player, and Bryan was so drunk, he started commenting on the commentary track. It was as awesome as it sounds.
I had occasion to meet Singer again, on May 5th, 2003. Not that I memorize the dates I meet famous directors; I just remember that it was the Monday after X-Men 2 came out.
It was right around graduation time, and there were a ton of parties going on. When I arrived at one such party, my friend ran up to me and gushed, “Oh my gosh, do you know who’s here? Bryan Singer!
Yes, she was so excited that she verbally hyperlinked to his IMDb page.
I asked what he was doing here, and she didn’t know. “It looks like he’s picking up some hot young coeds,” I said, noting the throng of girls fawning all over him.
“Not exactly,” my friend replied.
“Oh.”
“What the hell was a A-list director doing trolling for boys sixteen years his junior at a college party on the weekend that he’s releasing the biggest film of his career?”
I understood her point. I mean, it was cute and all when he was still only moderately successful (not to mention younger), but now it’s just creepy and weird. Shouldn’t he have better things to do?
I’m not sure what lesson I (or you) am supposed to take away from this little story. It’s great to see that power, money, and fame don’t necessarily change you, but could they also impede your maturity?
How the hell would I know? I’m just a PA. I have none of them.
