Whether the allegations concerning Bryan Singer are true or false, one thing is for sure: the man’s certainly got an eye for talent. From twinky to brawny and young to DILF (or in one case GILF), here are a few of the hunkiest guys to ever go in front of the camera for the out director.
Bryan Singer was “dead set on casting an unknown” when he took the reins of the iconic Superman franchise to make 2006’s Superman Returns, and an unknown is exactly what he got. The Des Moines, Iowa-raised, 6’2″ Brandon Routh had toiled away in a few episodes of MTV’s Undressed (remember that?) and sporadic daytime soap opera spots, but everything changed when Singer cast him as Superman.
With a million dollar salary to match his million dollar looks, Routh was poised to take off until the movie was released, ended up being awful and was rejected by both fans and critics. The franchise died for a few years until springing back to life with last year’s Man Of Steel, and Routh’s career never really regained footing. He played the boring straight guy in 2012’s short-lived gay-themed CBS sitcom Partners and doesn’t seem to have anything interesting on the horizon. Perhaps Singer will come up with another great role for him.
Lean and boyish Nicholas Hoult wasn’t exactly a Hollywood rookie when he signed up for the Singer-directed Jack The Giant Slayer, but the film was his first big lead role. Hoult had a small role as Beast in X-Men: First Class, but more intriguingly played gay (and showed off his considerable assets) as a young student hot for DILF-y Colin Firth in 2009’s A Single Man. Jack The Giant Slayer grossed $65 million on a $195 million budget and was one of the more notorious flops of 2013. Still, Singer’s holding onto this one. Hoult will appear in the upcoming X-Men: Days Of Future Past as well as the recently announced followup X-Men: Apocalypse.
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Well what do you know? We’ve got yet another Bryan Singer discovery to add to the list! Hugh Jackman and his rippling muscles have been around for so long that he seems like Hollywood royalty at this point, but in early 2000 he was an Australian musical theatre actor trying his luck in L.A.
After Dougray Scott (remember him?) was forced to pull out of the original X-Men due to scheduling conflicts with Mission: Impossible 2, the more-or-less unknown Jackman was given the job to replace him and the rest is comic book geek history. With the exception of his Broadway stint as Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz, Jackman has never really played gay, but that certainly hasn’t stopped the gay rumors from swirling around him.
It seems like we’ve been talking about Michael Fassbender and The Largest Penis Ever Seen On Earth forever, but prior to his American breakout role in X-Men: First Class (produced by Singer, but directed by Matthew Vaughn) he was just another international actor with a couple of intense indie flicks to his credit. Though it was Singer who first put him on America’s radar there was something else that got the rest of us talking back in 2011, and we’ve only just now begun to get over it. Fassbender is a bit older than the types Singer usually gives the breaks to, but unlike Routh he wasn’t exactly some wide-eyed ingenue when he hit L.A. Fassy will next be seen in X-Men: Days Of Future Past. Last seen in Shame, his penis is said to be mulling over scripts.
Definitely the anti-twink of this group, brawny German-born Thomas Kretschmann was directed by Singer in a little seen 2008 thriller Valkyrie, which also starred heterosexual box office superstar Tom Cruise. The film’s plot is some hooey about German officers trying to assassinate Hitler after World War II, but after looking at Kretschmann’s pics we can just imagine Singer directing him to give “blue steel” in front of the camera.
Hostel: Part III and the presumably horrible Dracula 3D came soon after, so Singer didn’t exactly have the midas touch with his career as he did with Jackman, but with the upcoming Avengers: Age Of Ultron, things seem to be on the upswing for Mr. Kretschmann. And if things get too hard, the 51-year old can always pull a Fassbender to get people talking.
QuintoLover
… Wait, I’m confused. What did Bryan Singer do for Michael Fassbender? Are you talking about XMen? Because he didn’t direct First Class.
adk
Um, Brandon Routh actually played a gay character on that show.
And both Fassbender and Hoult were getting plenty of attention and lots of roles way before the X-Men flick (which, as the above commenter noted was not directed by Singer).
BritAus
@QuintoLover: He didn’t direct it but he was one of the producers on it.
Billy Budd
I love Fassy B. I would give my right ball for a night with him.
tookietookie
Hoult?! NOOOOOOO!
QuintoLover
@tookietookie: If he’s good enough to grace Jennifer Lawrence, he’s good enough for the rest of the world.
milwsport
Valkyrie was not a bunch of hooey. It was based on actual events when a group of German officers tried to kill Hitler BEFORE the war was over. It would have been impossible to do so after the war since he was dead by then.
MarionPaige
The implication that these actors got their big shots because of a gay director’s lust for them seems a bit unfair. For example, who or what was behind this big push of Taylor Kitsch? Not that Kitsch is not a talented actor but, how was it all of a sudden that he was headlining so many big budget movies? I don’t think the director who pushed Kitsch is gay.
What you are implying about these actors can be said of pretty much every actor who headlines a big budget movie. A whole lot of people have to be genuinely lustful toward an actor to bet hundreds of millions of dollars on that actor.
QuintoLover
@MarionPaige: I too genuinely question what the hell hollywood was thinking when they pushed Kitsch. He’s not the worst actor in the world but he doesn’t deserve A-List status by a longshot.
MarionPaige
There is a new young actor name Brenton Thwaites who is about to get the Taylor Kitsch Treatment by his coming out of nowhere and headlining two big budget movies (The Signal and The Giver). In one movie, he is being pushed as the “star” when Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges are in the cast. The point is that THIS seems to be the way the Hollywood System works. Some actor strikes a chord with enough of the right people and there is a concentrated effort to push that actor as a new superstar. It probably has to do with the fact that Hollywood can make more money by making an unknown actor a star than by hiring an existing A-Lister
Superman
@QuintoLover: I emphatically disagree with you. Taylor Kitsch is a very talented actor. John Carter may have bombed at the box office, but it was due to a blitz of highly toxic (and unfair) reviews by a few critics. The movie itself wasn’t nearly as bad as these jaded commentators asserted (in fact, I thought it was a very entertaining flick). And Taylor was the very best part of that movie. He was also great in Battleship, which was likewise dogged by critics but well-liked by the majority of movie watchers who actually saw the movie.
In fact, the all-out campaign by some in Hollywood to sink Taylor’s career seemed to be a direct counter move against those who sought to propel his career. Taylor was simply a pawn in a behind-the-scenes Hollywood power struggle. The same thing happened to Brandon Routh.
QuintoLover
@Superman: I didn’t get to see John Carter but there were other reasons John Carter bombed. There’s no way it couldn’t have with THAT budget and marketing cost. But I did see Battleship…. TRASH. That movie was ridiculously bad. They didn’t even say “You Sunk My Battleship!” That could have brought it up from an F to a D based on the cheese factor alone (maybe even a C if Liam Neeson said it).
stranded
There were rumors about why Singer chose Routh as superman. I thought they were dumb, even though those same rumors circled around the actor who played Colossus in 2003. Whatever gift he had, it’s kind of lost. I mean this is the guy who directed The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil, he revitalized comic book movies with X-Men. But then his vision for Superman was so cheesy, Valkyrie did ok, Mockingbird Lane wasn’t good, Jack the Giant killer tanked. I feel like the x-men movies have kind of plateaued. X2 was good, X3 which he had nothing to do with, was total shit. Wolverine was meh, X-men first class was good, but now you’ve got to compare it to Nolan’s Batman, Webb’s Amazing Spiderman and Snyder’s Man of Steel. I don’t know if it’s at the same caliber.
sejjo
Michael Fassbender had already been a success before XMen. It’s always disheartening when pundits say a movie like XMen would be the movie to make him a star, despite the fact that he had already been in Tarantino’s box office and critical success (Inglourious Basterds). The same was said of Jennifer Lawrence’s role in XMen despite the fact that she had already gotten an Oscar nomination for Winter’s Bone.
Cam
Wasn’t holt the star of “About a Boy” with Hugh Grant and Toni Collett? Didn’t exactly get his start with Singer did he?
DistingueTraces
You left out Brad Renfro.
The one that died.
spanky
I’d eat his a** for a part……..
QuintoLover
@stranded: Actually, the caliber of the films goes like this:
Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy > XMen First Class> Snyder’s Man of Steel> Webb’s Hot Mess (AKA Amazing SM)
rickgould
There’s plenty of eye candy in Singer’s movies among the supporting and bit part credits…just like the old days in George Cukor’s movies!
Except back then, they were auditioned at Cukor’s Sunday pool parties, as opposed to Singer’s hot tub casting coach…
stranded
@QuintoLover:
lol. to each thier own.
TerrenM
These articles are REALLY getting DUMB!