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Your First Film Is Always Your Best Film, In A Way. There's Something About Your First Film That You Never Ever Get Back To, But You Should Always Try. It's That Slight Sense Of Not Knowing What You're Doing, Because The Technical Skills You Learn - Especially If You Have A Film That Works, That Has Some Kind Of Success - Are Beguiling. The Temptation Is To Use Them Again, And They're Not Necessarily Good Storytelling Techniques.

-Danny Boyle

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Your First Film Is

Danny Boyle

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Your First Film Is Always Your Best Film, In A Way. There's Something About Your First Film That You Never Ever Get Back To, But You Should Always Try. It's That Slight Sense Of Not Knowing What You're Doing, Because The Technical Skills You Learn - Especially If You Have A Film That Works, That Has Some Kind Of Success - Are Beguiling. The Temptation Is To Use Them Again, And They're Not Necessarily Good Storytelling Techniques.

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When You're In Zero Gravity Everything Moves At The Same Speed And Nothing Stops It. If You Throw Something It Travels Forever But It Still Travels At The Speed You Threw It At. To Make It Plausible, Movies Have Chosen To Show It In Slow Motion.

Some Of Us Are Interested In Directors, But Really The Vast Majority Of Us Are Interested In Actors. You Experience The Films Through The Actors, So They're All Locked Into Your Imagination In Some Kind Of Layer Of Fantasy Or Hatred Or Wherever They Settle Into Your Imagination.

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I Like To Hide Behind My Intellect. But The Truth Is, Unless All Of Us Start Getting Honest About What The Reality Is, Things Aren't Going To Change. If We All Keep Pretending That We Know Stuff And If Everyone Else Would Do What We Knew And Everything Would Be A Better Place, Then Nothing Is Going To Change.

I Like Action Movies, Even Though I Think Action Movies Are Kind Of Derided Now. But There Is Something Extraordinary About Action Movies, Which Is Absolutely Linked To The Invention Of Cinema And What Cinema Is And Why We Love It.

I Mean Suspense, Twists Are Almost Impossible These Days.

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 Learned With 'the Beach' That I'm A Bit Better Lower Down The Radar.

I Don't Want To Make Pompous, Serious Films.

I Was Brought Up A Very Strict Catholic And I Don't Practice Anymore Or Anything.

I Haven't Got Anything Against Films That Are About The Minutia Of Relationships Or Customs, But I Love Extremes. I Love Taking A Bunch Of Characters And It Usually Is A Bunch Of Characters, And You Throw Something At Them That's Usually Extreme, Like A Bag Of Money, Or You Send Them Out To Explode A Nuclear Device On The Surface Of The Sun. And Those Extremes Are Wonderful For Drama.

I Think Women Assess Time Passage Much Better Than Men - Because Of Their Biological Clocks - And They Are Much More Realistic About Measuring Out Time, Whereas Men Tend To Hang Onto Things. Women Acknowledge The Biology Of Their Time, And Dance Through The Beat Of That Drum...whereas Men Just Drum.

But Interestingly Star City's Technology Is All 1970s - Still. In Fact, It's Alarming Because You Think, "you're Not Going To Send Someone Up Into Space In Something That Old, Are You?" But It Works And It Always Has Worked And It Doesn't Fail And It's Incredibly Reliable.

To Create The Reality Of Space With This Sense Of Suspension: Nothing's Happening, It's Endless; We're Traveling At 28,000 Kilometers An Hour But Nothing's Happening. Nothing! And You Have To Do That! There Are All These Rules You Have To Follow, I've Never Known Anything Like It.

The Most Extraordinary Thing, You'd Be Given Permission For, And Then The Weirdest, Simplest Things, You Just Wouldn't Be Able To Obtain Permissions. And It Would Go On And On And On Forever And Ever, And There Was No Way To Know. You Have To Kind Of Approach It With An Open, Quite Optimistic Mind, No Matter What's Thrown At You, Because It Will Only Ever Result In Damaging The Film If You Let Any Kind Of Despondency Get To You.

There Is A Steve [jobs] That Apple Would Like To Actually Present To The Public. They Have A Character, Steve, And They Want To Keep That Story Going. And It's Very Important That Writers Challenge That Occasionally And Not Just Trust Their Parent Companies To Tell Them.

You Can Do Anything You Like - Really - But This Sci-fi Is Absolutely Disciplined, It's Zen, You Have To Be Absolutely Focused In An Area. You Have To Zone Into An Area And You Then You Can Achieve When You Get There. It's Really Weird!

Normally, I'm A Very Controlling Director. Directors Are Controlling. It's Part Of The Job, But There's Various Degrees Of It And The Constructs I Normally Work On Are Very Controlling Constructs.

I Always Wanted To Make This Film Or Another Film. I Thought The Worst Thing You Could Do Was To React To Slumdog's Success In Some Way. I Thought It Would Be Really Foolish.

I've Always Wanted To Do A Space Movie.

Basically, Actors Arrive In A Bubble. They Have A Little Sealed Bubble Around Them And It's Basically [comprised Of] Their Agents, Their Last Film, Their Next Film, Their Press Agent, And Their Per Diems - All These Things, They Cocoon Themselves With And You Have To Puncture That Bubble On Each Of Them To Make Them Be In Your Film.

The Problem With Being British... I Don't Know If It's Me Being British Or Being Raised A Strict Catholic, But You Never Really Enjoy Success.

People Say You Never Remember Anybody Who Dies In Movies, And It's True, You Don't. You Don't Even Remember People Who Disappear. Although The Moment That It Happens Might Be Terribly Sad And Moving, Five Minutes Later, If You're Asked To Remember That Person, You Go, "oh Right, Yeah, Yeah!" 'cause You're Just Moving Forward.

That Survival Instinct, That Will To Live, That Need To Get Back To Life Again, Is More Powerful Than Any Consideration Of Taste, Decency, Politeness, Manners, Civility. Anything. It's Such A Powerful Force.

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.

I Always Think, When There's Stuff That People Don't Like, I Always Say That If I Have Another Success, I'll Enjoy It More, But You Don't Really.

The Individual Will To Survive Is Often Seen As Just That, An Individual Thing. In Fact, It's Sort Of A Gene We All Carry And Like A Network Of Computers It All Contributes In Some Way To When It's Individually Needed.

Will To Survive

To Force Yourself Out Of The Comfort Zone, The Main Ingredient Is Trying To Work In A World Where You Haven't Been Before, That You Don't Know The Rules Of. And That Involves A Lot Of Research, So You Begin To See Where The Other People Have Been, But You Are Starting From As Vulnerable And As Low A Point As Possible.

Clearly, You Can Think Back And See That A Character Has Had Enormous Odds Stacked Against Him And Has To Overcome Them. It's Usually A Guy, I'm Afraid. But Then You're Setting Up A New Movie You Have Amnesia About These Meetings, When You've Discussed It More Analytically.

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Opening Ceremony

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Extraordinary Things

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I Have This Theory That Your First Film Is Always Your Best Film In Some Way. I Always Try To Get Back To That Moment When You're Not Relying On Things You've Done Before.

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Celluloid Will Be The Next Decade's Black And White.

Black And White

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If You Approach India In The Right Way, You Have So Much To Learn There About People, And There's So Many People. It's Such An Extraordinary Setup, And It's So Bewildering How It Manages To Get Through Somehow, You Can Only Wonder At It.

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Its Easy To Like The Most Popular Films, But I Have A Great Fondness For A Life Less Ordinary.

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I'm Always After Putting People In Extreme Circumstances. I'm Always After Not Knowing What I'm Doing In Those Extreme Circumstances.

Originally I'm A Big Pop-music Aficionado, That's My Love.

Both Of My Sisters Have Been Teachers And They Used To Say You Get Asked Between 300 And 600 Questions Every Day Which You Have To Answer. That's Exactly What Directing Is. And The Vast Majority Of Those Questions Are Not Very Interesting Really, But They Need Somebody To Make A Decision - A Good One Or A Bad One - And They Follow It.

Everybody Expects You To Be Qualified To Talk About Your Films, But In A Way, You're The Least Qualified Person To Talk About Them. When You're Finished, You Don't Watch Them At All.

My Dad Was A Labourer And My Mum Had Exactly The Same Job As Noel Gallagher's Mum - She Was A Dinner Lady At Our Local School. Everyone Comes Over From Ireland And They Get The Same Jobs.

I've Just Been To The Taj Mahal Which I'd Never Been To And I'm Not A Very Romantic Kind Of Guy But It Is The Most Romantic Thing I've Ever Seen.

Always Changing Genres, Making Very Different Films Is A Good Idea. It's A Way Of Making Yourself Feel Vulnerable Again, Getting Back To That Innocence. As Is Working Within A Circumspect Budget.

Once, A French Journalist Told Me That All My Films Are The Same. I Said, 'excuse Me? I Work Hard To Make Them Different.' What She Meant Was That In My Films There Is A Character That Faces Insurmountable Odds, And They Overcome Them. But I Thought That Might Be True, But You Need Certain Factors For Drama, And You Need To Overcome Them.

I Say To First Time Filmmakers That When They're Asked, They Should Go To America As You're Far More Likely To Get A Chance.

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Movies Are About Time. You Can Take That Momentum And Manipulate Time As Well, Or You Can Deliberately Slow It Down, Stop It, And Start It Again. There Is No Other Art Form That Does That Type Of Manipulation In That Way.

I Want People To Leave The Cinema Feeling That Something's Been Confirmed For Them About Life.

I Have A Philosophy, A Belief, Which I Can See In Many, Many Other Directors That Your Early Work Is Your Best Work, Because You Don't Know What You're Doing.

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I Haven't Got Anything Against Films That Are About The Minutia Of Relationships Or Customs, But I Love Extremes.

I Always Say To Anybody Who's Going Over To America For The First Time, 'whatever You Do, Go And See A Popular Mainstream Film With A Big Audience.' Because People Shout Out. You Never Get That In Britain. Everybody's So Quiet, Scared To Laugh. It's Like Being In Church.

I Kind Of Call Myself An Atheist, I Suppose - Although Quite A Spiritual Atheist, I Hope.

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.

I Find My Own Pain And Others' Difficult To Tolerate, So I Always Want To Try To Shift Things So They'll Be Better. But In Doing That, If I Am Coming From A Place Of Ego, I Often Cause Harm. So It's A Struggle For Me To Set My Ego Outside And Find A Softer And More Compassionate Way Of Approaching Things.

My Kids Are Too Old To Remember This Now But, When They Were Much Younger, I Swore To Them If This Miracle Ever Happened, I Would Receive It In The Spirit Of Tigger From Winnie The Pooh, And Thats What That Was.

Your First Film Is Always Your Best Film, In A Way. There's Something About Your First Film That You Never Ever Get Back To, But You Should Always Try. It's That Slight Sense Of Not Knowing What You're Doing, Because The Technical Skills You Learn - Especially If You Have A Film That Works, That Has Some Kind Of Success - Are Beguiling. The Temptation Is To Use Them Again, And They're Not Necessarily Good Storytelling Techniques.

If You Have To Be Persuaded About Something, You Shouldn't Do It.

I Made This Film 'the Beach,' Which Didn't Take Place In A City, And It Didn't Really Suit Me.

It's Interesting, The Worse Things Get In Cities, The Tougher That Cities Get, The More Brutal The Humor Is. The Tougher Things People Face, The Darker The Sense Of Humor Gets And I Find That Incredibly Optimistic.

The Perfect Equation Is Form Equals Content. The Style Of The Film Reflects The Story, And That's What You're Always Aiming For. You're Not Always Necessarily Successful At It, But That's The Ambition That You're Trying To Do.

If I Was American, I Think I'd Live In New York, Because I Like That East Coast Mentality. There's Nothing Wrong With Hollywood. If You Want To Be A Big Time Filmmaker, You Should Go To Hollywood.

One Of The Traditions Of Film Acting Is A Sort Of Mumbled Realism. Be Minimal, And Do Less. 'even Less Than That.'

I Find It Difficult Enough Being Called "mr. Boyle," Which As I Age I'm Increasingly Called.

If You Love A Book You Tend Not To Follow Its Surface Value, You Follow The Other Things In It.

The Great Thing With Film Is That It Doesn't Have An Ego. It's Just A Film. Everybody That Makes Them Has An Ego, And The Problem With Awards And Stuff Like That Is That It Always Affects The Egos, And Everyone Gets Stained By It In Some Way. And That Can Be Fine And Very Innocent, But It Can Be Horrible As Well.

As Soon As You Think You Can Do Whatever You Want And You Have Whatever Great Professional In The World Waiting To Work With You, Then You Are Sunk.

It's A Good Place When All You Have Is Hope And Not Expectations.

We're Trying To Learn From [olympic] Beijing, Which Could Be Very Intimidating. We've Learned To Expect It's Power, It Majesty And That It Completes A Cycle Of Certain Types Of Shows... I Don't Think Any Nation Could Do Anything On That Scale. We Haven't Got That Money, And I Don't Think Anybody Would Have The Appetite For That Kind Of Expenditure And That Kind Of Control, So We're Going To Try And Do Something A Bit More Intimate And Try And Start Again... Start A New Cycle For These Kind Of Ceremonies.

Most Films That I Do, Whether Successful Or Not, Just Fade Away. They Have Their Moment In The Sun, Then They Are Gone. 'trainspotting' Did Not, And Especially With Journalists. So Whenever I Launched A New Film, I'd End Up Talking About 'trainspotting.'

I'm A Big Sports Fan. Football. Cricket.

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.

If The American Taxpayer Knew How Much They Paid Per Person To Put Neil Armstrong On The Moon They Would Never Have Paid It. It Was Hidden From Them Deliberately Because The Costs Were Astronomical.

I Dont See Much Difference Between It And The Other Films Though I Can See On A Rational And Intelligent Level There Is A Big Difference.

I'd Love To Do A Cop Film In America. That's A Genre I Absolutely Adore.

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