Unusual Facts About The Usual SuspectsBefore he directed X Men, Bryan Singer made a name for himself with a movie about a different batch of heroes, with a different set of super powers. The Usual Suspects premiered at Sundance in 1. Cannes in May, and hit theaters exactly 2. Roger Ebert famously disliked it with its twisty, humorous criminal caper. You already know who Keyser Sze is, but here are 1. KEYSER SZE WAS NAMED AFTER A LAWYER. Screenwriter Christopher Mc. How To Stop Your Bones Cracking More Than Usual' title='How To Stop Your Bones Cracking More Than Usual' />Quarrie once worked for a lawyer named Keyser Sume pronounced Sue may, whom he told Youve got a great name. Youre going to be the villain in a script some day. When it came time to write The Usual Suspects, Mc. Quarrie figured that, for legal reasons, hed better not use the exact name, and so he replaced it with part of the Turkish expression sze bomak, which means talk too much literally, drown inwith words. Windows Vista Ultimate Rtm Sounds Of Music here. Considering that the movie also has a character nicknamed Verbal because he talks too much, Turkish audiences might not have been as surprised by the movies ending as other viewers were. KEVIN SPACEY ASKED TO BE IN THE MOVIE BEFORE HE EVEN KNEW WHAT IT WOULD BE. The actor met Bryan Singer at a screening of the directors first feature, Public Access, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1. Spacey liked the movie so much that he told Singer he wanted to be in whatever he made next. I took that as an assignment, Singer told Charlie Rose. BtvSr' alt='How To Stop Your Bones Cracking More Than Usual' title='How To Stop Your Bones Cracking More Than Usual' />Because I worship this man as an actor. MCQUARRIE THOUGHT UP THE TITLE AND POSTER IMAGE BEFORE HE CAME UP WITH THE STORY. The satirical news and entertainment magazine Spy had a regular feature called The Usual Suspects taken from a line in Casablanca, which Mc. Quarrie thought would make a good movie title. What would it be about Well, the usual suspectsa bunch of guys in a police lineup. It practically writes itselfKEVIN SPACEY READ THE SCRIPT NOT KNOWING WHICH PART HE WAS SUPPOSED TO PLAY. He liked the characters of Keaton and Dave Kujan, which eventually went to Gabriel Byrne and Chazz Palminteri, respectively. But Spacey was most drawn to Verbal Kint who, as it happened, was the part Singer and Mc. Quarrie wanted him for anyway. In fact, Mc. Quarrie later said he wrote the part specifically with Spacey in mind, because he was lesser known at the time. I wanted the audience to dismiss him as a minor character. Test your knowledge with amazing and interesting facts, trivia, quizzes, and brain teaser games on MentalFloss. I woke up one am about 2 years ago and my neck was in more pain then it usually was and it and still does Pop even when I am doing normal every day things. How To Stop Your Bones Cracking More Than Usual' title='How To Stop Your Bones Cracking More Than Usual' />AL PACINO TURNED DOWN THE ROLE OF DAVE KUJAN TO PLAY A COP IN A DIFFERENT MOVIE. That would be Heat, which famously paired him onscreen with Robert De Niro for the first time. Pacino didnt want to play a cop twice in the same year, so he opted for the more prestigious, Michael Mann directed project. THE DIRECTOR SAW THE FILM AS A PARALLEL TO THE WIZARD OF OZ. Singer explained his theory in one of the DVDs making of featurettes New York is Kansas, where normal daily life happens Los Angeles is Oz, where theres a variety of adventures and colorful characters, including Kobayashi Is he the man, or is he the man behind the curtain Both stories also have endings that cast doubt on the reality of what the audience just saw. THE FILMMAKERS WANTED HARRY DEAN STANTON, NOT BENICIO DEL TORO. Thats quite a different direction for the character of Fenster, who in the film is known for his nearly incomprehensible manner of speech and not much else. Singer had an older actor in mind, someone like Stanton whom he mentioned specifically, to give the partnership of Fenster and Mc. Manus an old guyyoung guy dynamic. But on the page, the role didnt have much personality to it, and Singer couldnt seem to find an actor who fit. We just realized its the 20th anniversary of Smash Mouths Walkin on the Sun, a song about not being a normie or giving into ephemeral fads like soul. Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas newspaper. Includes news, sports, opinion, and local information. It was Spacey who suggested Del Toro. FENSTERS UNIQUE DIALECT WAS ALL BENICIO DEL TOROS IDEA. As Del Toro explained it on Inside the Actors Studio, his characters only real purpose in the story was to die. So to liven things up, Del Toro tried delivering Fensters lines the way the audience hears them in the filmvery quickly, and with a thick, indiscernible accent. Nobody on the set could understand him. Singer later recalled, At first I thought it was a joke, but I didnt want to offend him if it wasnt a joke. Once he determined that Del Toro was doing it on purpose, as a conscious character choice, Singer embraced it. He gave Kevin Pollak a line What did you say to let audiences know that the movie knew that Fenster was hard to understand. GABRIEL BYRNE TRIED TO DROP OUT JUST BEFORE FILMING BEGAN. The actor was dealing with some personal issues that made him reluctant to make the film or any film at the time. His agent, attributing it to cold feet, asked if he was sure. He said he was. She asked what it would take for him to do the film. He said, If they shot it in Los Angeles, where I live, and it took no longer than five weeks, Ill do it. Singer and company readily agreed to those terms it wasnt until later that Byrne realized shooting for five weeks in Los Angeles was what they had planned anyway. Yep, even the scenes set in New York were shot in L. A.  1. 0. THE LINEUP SCENE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SERIOUS, BUT BENICIO DEL TORO KEPT FARTING. Though the script didnt play that scene for laughs, the actors were in a silly mood the day of the shoot and kept screwing around with the lines, cracking each other up. On the special edition DVD, Del Toro gave an additional reason for the hilarity All I remember is that someone farted and no one knew who the guilty party was. Kevin Pollak remembers it differently Del Toro farted like 1. Frustrated, Singer chewed them out during the lunch break, which only made it harder for the actors to keep straight faces when they got back to work. Singer finally embraced the tone and used the scene to establish camaraderie among the characters, making it work to his and the films advantage. THE ENTIRE INTERROGATION SCENE, BITS OF WHICH ARE SPRINKLED THROUGHOUT THE MOVIE, WAS SHOT BEFORE EVERYTHING ELSE. Singer and the cast spent five days filming that sequence. Without all the flashbacks interspersed, it felt like a two person play between Spacey and Palminteri. THE FILMS EDITOR IS ALSO ITS COMPOSER. Writerdirectors are common. Even directorcinematographers arent unusual. But a composereditor John Ottman has been successful at both halves of that combination, largely thanks to Bryan Singer. The two met while working on someone elses student film at USC, and Singer later asked him to edit his feature debut, Public Access. When that film lost its composer at the last minute, Ottmanwho had been dabbling in music on the sidepitched himself for double duty. The result was such that Singer wanted Ottman to do both jobs on his next film, too, which Ottman agreed to through mutual blackmail. On The Usual Suspects, Singer says, Youre not gonna score this movie unless you edit it, Ottman explained. And I said, Well, Im not gonna edit it unless I score it. Except for the first X Men, Ottman has been the composereditor on all of Singers movies. IT WON EVERY OSCAR FOR WHICH IT WAS NOMINATED. All two of them Best Supporting Actor for Kevin Spacey, and Best Original Screenplay for Christopher Mc. Quarrie. Spacey has since been nominated for another Oscar Best Actor for 1. American Beauty, which he also won, so hes batting 1. So is Mc. Quarrie, who has only been nominated that one time. No losers in this crowd IT SUCCEEDS AT SURPRISING MOST VIEWERS BY MAKING THEM ASK THE WRONG QUESTION.