30-year-old who masqueraded as a high school junior revealed in new doc
nypost.comdebuted at Sundance this week, unravels Lee’s bizarre story with actor Alan Cumming sitting in for the man himself by lip-syncing to Lee’s narration (Lee agreed to tell his story, but didn’t want to appear on camera).
Director Jono McLeod, who knew Lee as a fellow student, tells the tale via interviews with his now-50-something classmates, animated sequences and snippets of old video.
Cumming, who was originally attached to star in a now-defunct feature adaptation of the story, remembers the saga as a news bombshell in Scotland. “It just hit a nerve in some way,” he told Indiewire. “Maybe as Scots we think we’re canny and can tell when someone is pulling the wool over our eyes and that’s why it caused so much consternation.”Former students at the suburban Glasgow school recall their new classmate’s background, as he told it to them: He’d moved from Canada, where his mother had been an opera singer.
After her death, he’d been sent to live with his grandmother in Bearsden. Initially, they say, he was mocked by other students for his strange appearance — he had a gaunt, pale face and a mop of wildly curly hair — and his propensity for answering teachers’ questions in astonishing detail.
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