Christophe Pinol: Five years ago, you had a big success, both critically and commercially, with The Usual Suspects. How did you deal with success, becoming suddenly famous…?

Bryan Singer: Well, for a director it's different. I pretty much stay the same. I have the same friends that I always had. You know, you meet a lot of people in Hollywood and a lot of them are famous and you get to know them and then they know you and you know them and then it's established. And then I just go back and hang out my friends. Everything the way I normally do, if somebody recognizes me or finds out who I am and talks to me, I usually am very flattered. I just try to live as I always have. And I keep working with a lot of my friends. I ended up hiring them. My friend Brandon Boyce wrote Apt Pupil, I had my friend David Hayter write X-Men, John Ottman who works as a composer and editor, my friend Christopher McQuarrie wrote The Usual Suspects, … You know, I'm keep collaborating with a group of friends…

C.P.: Is it at this time (after The Usual Suspects) that the Fox asked you to make X-Men?

B.S.: Yes, they offered it to me a couple of times. I wasn't very interested because I didn't know anything about it. But my partner Tom DeSanto said, "No, you should really take a look at that. I'm a fan and it's really interesting." Then we set up a meeting with the Marvel people, I researched X-Men to learn about it, you know, philosophy, themes, characters, the relationships with one another, … And I found it very interesting.

C.P.: So, you were not a fan of the comics?

B.S.: I never read comics. I never read any…Until two or three years ago.

C.P.: And now, are you a big fan?

B.S.: Sure.

C.P.: What's your favorite X-Men character ? Not necessarily in the movie.

B.S.: I like Protheus. Because I like the idea of changing the whole world around us, but it's too expensive for a movie to do it (laughs)!

C.P.: Some of the characters like Storm or Cyclops have just a few sequences in the movie. And I've heard that you cut 20 minutes from the movie. Are those minutes cut from scenes featuring their characters?

B.S.: Some of them, yes. Cyclops and Jean Grey had a scene that we cut, Jean and Savior had a scene too. Storm and Rogue had a scene that I cut…

C.P.: Why did you cut them?

B.S.: Just because they weren't necessary in the flow of the story. Magneto had a monologue and I cut most of it because I didn't need it as we come upon the same information later. But that sort of thing always happens. In The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey had a long monologue at the end …

C.P.: But for X-Men, do you want to put those sequences back in for the DVD release, like a director's cut?

B.S.: Yes. I think what we'll do is a modest DVD with some missing scenes. And then later we'll have a second DVD which will add even more things to make a cut a little longer than the movie. I wouldn't call it a "director's cut" because X-Men is my director's cut, but it'll have more material.

C.P.: You seem to have made this movie like an introduction to the X-Men world.

B.S.: Yes, that's exactly what it is.

C.P.: Is it part of a plan to make one or two sequels?

B.S.: Yes. We have no specific stories in the works, but definitely this film introduces the universe of the X-Men, in the same way that the comic books introduce the super-heroes and their characters. They are always introduced with the notion of expansion and growth. That's the way I approached them.

C.P.: Some of the actors have already signed for one or two sequels. Is it the same for you?

B.S.: No. I might be interested but I'm not obligated. It depends on the circumstances. I did my deal so I wouldn't be forced to do another movie.

C.P.: Do you remember the first time you had to direct a scene on a set? Was it for Public Access, your first long feature ?

B.S.: No. It was for my student film Lion's Den with Ethan Hawke. It is a short film which I did, but it was student people working for free. Public Access was people working for very little, and then The Usual Suspects had a more professional crew.

C.P.: And when you look at the beginning of your career, how do you see your breakthrough?

B.S.: My breakthrough…? It all began when myself, Ethan Hawke and Brandon Boyce, a friend of mine who adapted Apt Pupil (from a short novel by Stephen King), were at a dinner in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles at four in the morning. And Ethan suggested: "We should make a movie. Should be about us. Like a bunch of guys like us!". Because we grew up together. I grew up with Ethan in my own town. So I went home and I wrote it. And it took us of course a long time to raise the money and make a short film. That film got me Public Access, which won at the Sundance Film Festival in 1993, which got me The Usual Suspects, which got me Apt Pupil and now X-Men.

C.P.: And the failure of Apt Pupil didn't put off Fox?

B.S.: No. In fact I brought the chairman, Bill Mechanics at that time, to a screening of Apt Pupil and said: "Look! I want you to see this movie before we continue!" Because there was a period when actually X-Men might not have continued. He saw Apt Pupil and he walked out still confident in me, because it's a different kind of movie of course. Even though it was not a commercial success, Bill Mechanic liked the filmmaking.

C.P.: It was the first time you had to shoot action sequences. Was it difficult for you?

B.S.: It's more time consuming. You have to be careful about safety. So it's just a matter of taking more time. I had a good choreographer to work with, good stunt people and a lot of my actors could do their own stunts. Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) is very physical and capable. And I had a stunt co-ordinator that I've worked with in three movies that I really trust.

C.P.: What about the special effects you had to add in post-production?

B.S.: I just used my imagination to try to convey that to the actors. Try to explain to them what it's going to look like. But it's interesting with the visual effects, you don't know how it's really going to work until you see them.

C.P.: Why did you choose to create new costumes for the X-Men?

B.S.: Because there were really no old costumes. There is no original… I mean there are the original costumes which are different from the 1980 costumes, which are different from the 1990 costumes… So there were so many transformations… I've just tried to pick a costume that would look good in live action on real actors.

C.P.: Weren't you afraid of disappointing the big fans?

B.S.: No because I knew that if I made a good movie, and a movie that felt real and celebrated the essence of the characters, the fans would appreciate that. More than having yellow, blue and green, between colour and spandex…

C.P.: Yes, there was a little joke about "the yellow spandex" in the movie…

B.S.: That was my little joke to the fans (laughs)!

C.P.: Which movies do you like to see yourself?

B.S.: My favorite movie is Jaws (Steven Spielberg) and more recently The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato). It won't make sense in this country unfortunately. It's a very American movie. It's a documentary about Tammy Faye Baker an evangelist, which wouldn't make much sense here, but in America, Christian television is HUGE. And this woman and her husband were the pioneers of Christian television. There was a scandal, their empire crumbled, and she lived in a sort of seclusion and these young filmmakers decided to do a documentary about her and it's… amazing, hilarious, touching. I grew up knowing who she was but I never knew about her personally and it's just the most amazing, funny and clever film since…