Success

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.

Two Businesses

Everybody has two business: their business and show business.

Millions subscribe to People. Millions more flip through it while waiting in line at the grocery store. Then here’s Entertainment Weekly, Entertainment Tonight, and websites like TMZ and Perez Hilton, who update in intervals smaller than science is able to measure.

As someone who works in entertainment, it is a bit odd to know that everyone is curious about my business. My mom knows what the number one movie was this weekend; I have no idea what the best selling computer was.

This might be where all the egotism in Hollywood comes from. We have, after all, only one business, and everyone seems to be paying attention to it.

This is all a little silly, but there is a more pernicious effect. Due to what’s called “Dunbar’s number” (or the “monkeysphere,” if you’re into cheap jokes, like me), there is a limit to the number of people any individual can actually care about. This number is about 150.

What do I mean by “care about”? Imagine how you’d feel if your mother died. Now imagine if your best friend’s mother died. Now imagine a mother in Burundi died. They’re all tragic, but you feel it more strongly when the person is closer to you.

That’s Dunbar’s number.

Here’s the thing. The more you know about someone, the more you identify with them. As David Wong explains:

“Think of Osama Bin Laden. Did you just picture a camouflaged man hiding in a cave, drawing up suicide missions? Or are you thinking of a man who gets hungry and has a favorite food and who had a childhood crush on a girl and who has athlete’s foot and chronic headaches and wakes up in the morning with a boner and loves volleyball?

Something in you, just now, probably was offended by that. You think there’s an effort to build sympathy for the murderous fuck. Isn’t it strange how simply knowing random human facts about him immediately tugs at your sympathy strings?”

Do you know the names of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s kids? Do you know the names of your cousin’s kids? Or even your sister’s?

Think about how depressed some people got when Heath Ledger died. How many people got depressed over other 19,249 drug related deaths? The fact that it affected people shows that the brain can’t distinguish between a real relationship and a synthetic, televised, intertubed relationship.

A friend in the office just told me that Ashley Simpson is pregnant. I’m pretty sure I just forgot the name of my best friend in 2nd grade.

By the way, who the fuck is Ashley Simpson?