Tower Heist director and Oscar producer Brett Ratner apologized on Monday for using a gay slur Friday night at a public screening of his new film.

The director lost his cool during a question-and-answer session, and angered some in the audience by saying that rehearsal's for fags.

In a statement to TheWrap, Ratner said:

I apologize for any offense my remarks caused. It was a dumb way of expressing myself. Everyone who knows me knows that I don't have a prejudiced bone in my body. But as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words.

The director was answering questions from the audience after introducing the movie at the Arclight Hollywood cineplex.

The audience was stunned, one person who was present told TheWrap. At least one person walked out, upset over the reference.

Ratner's gaffe could be damaging, since he is the producer of this year's Oscar telecast.

The exchange went like this, according to a video of the event that was posted on the Internet but later removed:

Q: So you get this entire group of actors together -- what was rehearsal like?

A: Rehearsal? What's that? Rehearsal's for fags. Rehearsal. Not much. A lot of prep, preparation, complex action sequences, visual effects. Storyboards, animatics. The process was I made the actors stick to the script. And they wanted to, because the script was great.

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