Christopher McQuarrie - Early Life

Early Life

McQuarrie was born and raised in Princeton Junction, New Jersey, where he attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South with director Bryan Singer, actor Ethan Hawke and musician James Murphy. In lieu of college he took a job working as an assistant teacher at Christ Church Grammar School in Perth, Western Australia, and later hitchhiked around the western half of the continent. Returning to the United States a year later, he went to work for a detective agency in New Jersey for the next four years. In 1992, he applied to the New York City Police Department and was on his way to the academy when former schoolmate Singer offered him the opportunity to write their first feature film, Public Access, winner of the 1993 Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize.