Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Francis Boyle is an English film director, producer, screenwriter and theatre director, known for his work on films including Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, Sunshine, 127 Hours, and Steve Jobs. Boyle's 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won eight, including the Academy Award for Best Director. Boyle was presented with the Extraordinary Contribution to Filmmaking Award at the 2008 Austin Film Festival, where he also introduced that year's...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth20 October 1956
I find that people find a way out of misery through humor and it's humor that's often unacceptable to people who are not in quite such a state of misery.
I don't want to make pompous, serious films.
Although I behave in a quite reserved way in my personal life, give me a stage and I'll be as flamboyant as I can.
Directing is a mixture of compromise and perfectionism. When you lose the judgment of which is more important at any particular moment, you're time is over. They find you out and send you packing.
I love huge movies. Not sure I am the guy to make them, but you can rely on me being there watching them.
I don't want to make pompous, serious films; I like films that have a kind of vivacity about them.
I learned with 'The Beach' that I'm a bit better lower down the radar.
We want to see drama told in a cathartic way, with power, with emotion where you empathize and then you're frightened. All those feelings charge up in you and you feel for the story.
I want people to leave the cinema feeling that something's been confirmed for them about life.
I haven't got anything against films that are about the minutia of relationships or customs, but I love extremes.
If you have to be persuaded about something, you shouldn't do it.
Good storytelling for me is not so much technical expertise, which I know is applauded often; it's actually freshness of approach. It does mean you sometimes stumble and fall and make a horrible mess of things in seeking that freshness, but you should always keep trying to do that.
I don't want people to sit there and objectively watch the film. I want them to experience it as something that's under their skin, so you try to make the films really tactile.
The sun is the most important thing in everybody's life, whether you're a plant, an animal or a fish, and we take it for granted.