Danny Boyle In His Own Words: A revealing insight into 127 Hours maker

Ben Felsenburg

11th January, 2011

After debuting with the stylishly nerve-jangling Shallow Grave, Danny Boyle reshaped our cultural landscape with Trainspotting, right from the moment Ewan McGregor hared down an Edinburgh street proclaiming ‘choose life’.

In this book’s extensive film-by-film interviews, we discover how true the incendiary energy of that iconic scene is to the director.

He nominates David Bowie as his favourite artist and has shown a similar chameleon nature throughout his career: horror (28 Days Later); sci-fi (Sunshine); comedy (Millions).

We learn his obsessive work ethic began when he was a theatre director and how Boyle became arguably the British director with the most distinctive visual aesthetic since his beloved Nic Roeg.

Boyle’s energy is matched by his generosity – crediting himself for only a quarter of the success of his Oscar triumph with Slumdog Millionaire – and he shows a compelling honesty about mistakes (especially on The Beach) as much as successes, making this a revealing insight.