40 Fun Facts About Apt Pupil

Which actor, Oscar-nominated the same year for Gods and Monsters, played Kurt Dussander in the 1998 film Apt Pupil?

Ian McKellen took the part after being impressed by the director's previous thriller. A critics' prize later honoured his work in both of his 1998 roles together.

For what fee did Stephen King, impressed by an early script, option the Apt Pupil film rights in the 1990s?

One dollar bought the option, with King to be paid properly once the film came out. He agreed after seeing a first-draft script and an advance copy of the director's earlier thriller.

A room number that Ed French mentions in Stephen King's Apt Pupil, 217, is notorious from which other King novel?

The Shining puts its most feared room, 217, in the Overlook Hotel. King wrote Apt Pupil straight after finishing that novel.

Which relative of Todd Bowden does Kurt Dussander impersonate at a school meeting in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

His grandfather is the role Dussander plays, blaming Todd's slump on trouble at home. The lie unravels later, when the school official meets the real one.

Which 1990s sitcom star played Edward French, the school official fooled by Dussander, in the 1998 film Apt Pupil?

David Schwimmer was famous as Ross on Friends, but the director cast him after seeing him in a Los Angeles stage production. Kevin Pollak had earlier been attached to the role.

Which 1982 Stephen King collection first published Apt Pupil alongside the story of a Maine prison escape?

Different Seasons gathered four mostly non-supernatural stories that King had held back, because publishers had little market for fiction of that in-between length.

What wartime position did Kurt Dussander hold before hiding in America in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

Camp commandant was Dussander's post. The survivor who finally exposes him had lost his wife and daughters under that command.

Which 1986 film about four boys came from The Body, a novella in the same Stephen King collection as Apt Pupil?

Stand by Me was the first of three films drawn from the collection, and it earned an Oscar nomination for its adapted screenplay.

Which animated sitcom parodied Stephen King's Apt Pupil in a 2011 episode about a teen befriending an old fugitive?

Family Guy cast teenage Chris Griffin as the pupil and made the old man a puppeteer named Franz, whose wartime past a neighbour tries to warn Chris about.

The director of the 1998 film Apt Pupil later cast its Kurt Dussander actor as which X-Men villain?

Magneto, a mutant written as a Holocaust survivor, reunited the pair in X-Men two years after Apt Pupil.

Which director followed The Usual Suspects by adapting Stephen King's Apt Pupil for the screen in 1998?

Bryan Singer first came across the novella at 19. He called his film a study in cruelty, built on character-driven terror instead of the supernatural kind.

Which young actor, who made his debut in The Client, played Todd Bowden in the 1998 film Apt Pupil?

Brad Renfro was chosen from a couple of hundred hopefuls, and the role won him the best actor prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

In Stephen King's Apt Pupil, what do both Todd Bowden and Kurt Dussander begin to suffer as the war stories go on?

Nightmares plague both the boy and the old man as the stories pile up. Each, unknown to the other, later turns to killing.

What does Todd Bowden force the elderly Kurt Dussander to put on and march in during Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

An SS uniform is what Todd demands. In the 1998 film he buys it from a costume shop, and the old man keeps marching after being told to stop.

What sudden emergency strikes Kurt Dussander while he is disposing of a victim in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

A heart attack fells him mid-task, so he summons Todd, who hides the evidence and cleans the house before an ambulance is called.

In Stephen King's Apt Pupil, which stranger finally recognizes the ailing Kurt Dussander as a wanted war criminal?

His hospital roommate, an elderly survivor named Morris Heisel, knows the face at once but needs days to place it.

What job does Ed French, who grows suspicious of Todd Bowden's grades, hold in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

Guidance counselor Ed French calls a meeting over Todd's failing marks, and notices that the old man who turns up never uses the boy's name.

What does Todd Bowden use to hide his collapsing grades from his parents in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

Forged report cards keep his parents fooled for a while, but the fraud later gives Dussander a hold over him and forces him back to his books.

Each novella in Stephen King's 1982 collection is tied to a season; which one is in Apt Pupil's subtitle?

Summer of Corruption is the subtitle. The prison story before it stands for spring, and the two novellas that follow for fall and winter.

Which thrash metal band based the 1987 song A Skeleton in the Closet on Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

Anthrax put the song on Among the Living, an album whose title track borrows from another King book, The Stand.

Under which assumed name does the fugitive Kurt Dussander live quietly in a suburb in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

Arthur Denker passes as a harmless German immigrant. The film's screenwriter called the character a composite, not a portrait of any one real individual.

Whom do Todd Bowden and Kurt Dussander each secretly begin killing in Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil?

Homeless men become the prey of both, and for a long time neither knows what the other is doing. The 1998 film cuts this down to a single victim.

Where does Kurt Dussander, digging late at night, hide the remains of his victims in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

In his basement, where the graves stay secret until he is exposed. The 1998 film intercuts the search of the house with Todd's graduation.

Where does Kurt Dussander claim to have lodged a written account of Todd Bowden's visits in Stephen King's Apt Pupil?

In a safe deposit box, he says, to be opened on his death. It is a bluff, and so is Todd's story of a letter left with a friend.

Under what pretext does Todd Bowden visit the elderly Kurt Dussander every day in Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil?

Reading to him is the cover story, while the boy is really pressing the old man for every detail of his crimes.

To which country is Kurt Dussander due to be extradited after his arrest in the 1998 film Apt Pupil?

Israel is the destination arranged for him, but he dies before he can be sent, while sympathisers demonstrate outside the building.

As valedictorian in the 1998 film Apt Pupil, Todd Bowden gives a graduation speech about which figure of Greek myth?

Icarus is his subject, and the speech plays over shots of Dussander's home being searched.

In the 1998 film Apt Pupil, which animal does a drunken Kurt Dussander try and fail to kill in his oven?

A cat is the target, a sign of how retelling his crimes has stirred up the old cruelty. In the film the animal gets away.

Which star of Hitchcock's North by Northwest was approached to play Kurt Dussander in the 1980s but died before filming?

James Mason died in July 1984, and Richard Burton, the producer's next choice, died the following month, long before any camera rolled.

Which character from another Stephen King story does Kurt Dussander name as the Maine banker who bought his stocks?

Andy Dufresne is the name he recalls, adding that the banker was jailed a year later for murdering his wife: the hero of the prison novella that opens the same collection.

Apt Pupil is the only novella in Stephen King's 1982 collection told from which narrative point of view?

Third person narration sets it apart: the other three stories in the book are each told by one of their own characters.

Which fictional Southern California suburb is the setting of Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil?

Santo Donato is King's invention, and the story unfolds there over about four years, with most of the action in the first year and the final months.

Where does Todd Bowden take his rifle after killing Ed French at the end of Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil?

Beside a freeway, at a hideout he has used before, where the story ends five hours later. The 1998 film drops this for an ending built on blackmail.

Which Dawson's Creek star had the supporting role of Joey in the 1998 film Apt Pupil?

Joshua Jackson was already known from the Mighty Ducks films, and Apt Pupil came out in the same year that his teen drama began.

Which two jobs did John Ottman do on the 1998 film Apt Pupil, recording part of his work with the Seattle Symphony?

Editor and composer Ottman found that no existing music worked as a temporary track, so he aimed for a blend of the scores of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the comedy 1941.

At which European film festival did the 1998 film Apt Pupil have its premiere, weeks before reaching US cinemas?

Venice hosted the premiere in September 1998, after the distributor moved the release from February to sit among the autumn's more serious films.

Which genre prize, voted by a science fiction, fantasy and horror academy, named Apt Pupil best horror film of 1998?

Saturn Award voters also gave their supporting actor prize to the film's Dussander, although the picture had disappointed at the box office.

Where in Los Angeles was the 1998 film Apt Pupil previewed for rabbis before its release, to gauge their reaction?

Museum of Tolerance viewers at its Holocaust centre responded well, and only then did the director go ahead with the release.

Which Silver Spoons star was cast as Todd Bowden in a 1987 Apt Pupil film that was abandoned unfinished?

Rick Schroder was 17 when the money ran out after ten weeks. By the time funding returned a year later he looked too old, and the footage was shelved.

In which unincorporated Los Angeles County community was the 1998 film Apt Pupil shot on location?

Altadena stood in for the story's suburb, and the director worked in the name and colours of his own high school football team, the Pirates.