10 Genius Techniques Directors Used To Get Great Movie Performances

10. Bryan Singer Secretly Told Everyone They Were Keyser Söze - The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects is one of the most ingeniously constructed and executed thrillers of the 1990s, its intentionally convoluted plot propped up by both its killer final twist and, of course, its awesome ensemble cast.

But in order to sew the seeds of paranoia and confusion throughout the film, director Bryan Singer decided to mess with the heads of his principal gallery of criminals.

According to star Kevin Spacey, Singer convinced Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio del Toro and Gabriel Byrne that they were the film's shadowy criminal mastermind Keyser Söze, only for them to view a preview screening of the film and discover that Spacey's Verbal Kint was the masked gangster all along.

Hilariously, Byrne was so incensed by the deception that he had heated words with Singer outside the screening room, but considering how brilliantly the trick informs the performances and imparts the film with so much ambiguity, it was doubtless a genius move.