The great thing about space films generally, with the exception of Apollo 13, is that big stars tend not to work in space and I think that's because space is an equaliser. It makes everyone the same really and suits an ensemble cast and actors who are prepared to work with each other.

Danny Boyle

Categorized in : Thinking Stars Space

To be a film-maker, you have to lead. You have to be psychotic in your desire to do something. People always like the easy route. You have to push very hard to get something unusual, something different.

Danny Boyle

different desire people

It's a good place when all you have is hope and not expectations.

Danny Boyle

good-place expectations

I grew up in a city, I'm a city person - I go on holiday and I'm bored.

Danny Boyle

holiday bored cities

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.

Danny Boyle

sun character drama

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.

Danny Boyle

might people moving

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.

Danny Boyle

important sun animal

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.

Danny Boyle

trying mean fall

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!

Danny Boyle

really-weird sci-fi achieve

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.

Danny Boyle

skins trying people

I want people to leave the cinema feeling that something's been confirmed for them about life.

Danny Boyle

want feelings people

If you have to be persuaded about something, you shouldn't do it.

Danny Boyle

ifs

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.

Danny Boyle

optimistic cities people

There's lots of things that can be solved with cash.

Danny Boyle

cash

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.

Danny Boyle

stage giving way

I love huge movies. Not sure I am the guy to make them, but you can rely on me being there watching them.

Danny Boyle

not-sure guy being-there

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.

Danny Boyle

hours space reality

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.

Danny Boyle

mixtures compromise important

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.

Danny Boyle

stories feelings drama

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.

Danny Boyle

apples jobs character

One of the traditions of film acting is a sort of mumbled realism. Be minimal, and do less. 'Even less than that.'

Danny Boyle

tradition film acting