SINGER, BRYAN

SINGER, BRYAN (1965– ), U.S. writer, director, producer. Singer was born in New York, N.Y., and raised in Princeton Junction and Lawrenceville, N.J., by father Norbert (businessman) and mother Grace Sinden (environmental activist). Introverted as a child, Singer played piano from an early age, loved movies and the TV show Star Trek, and at 12, became fascinated with still photography. By his early teens, he was shooting 8-mm and Super-8 films in his backyard, with friend Ethan Hawke and schoolmate Christopher McQuarrie (who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Singer's The Usual Suspects). He graduated high school in 1984, attended the School of Visual Arts in New York, then transferred to the University of Southern California. He was only 23 when his first major release, Public Access, garnered the prestigious Sundance Grand Jury Prize. Two years later, Singer directed the hit The Usual Suspects (1995). He directed and produced Apt Pupil (1997), adapted from a Stephen King short story which involved a neighbor with a Nazi past. He followed this by directing X-Men (2000), a $75-million reworking of the famed Marvel comic book for the big screen. This tale of reluctant superheroes piqued his interest, he said, because it is "about a gang of outsiders. They're mutants. The films I've made so far are about characters who hide something below the surface,   some secret they don't reveal." The character Magnito is a Holocaust survivor. Singer directed and executive-produced the sequel X-2 (2003). Singer also produced the acclaimed TV series House, M.D. (2004). (Amy Handelsman (2nd ed.)