An interview with director Danny Boyle

When you look at the work of director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Millions, and Sunshine), the recurrent theme that emerges is their focus on characters seeking redemption.

That they’re granted a second chance is in keeping with the filmmaker’s optimistic way of thinking. His latest, Slumdog Millionaire, continues to focus on this theme as it follows the trials of a young man trying to escape the slums of India. If positive reviews and early awards are any indication, Boyle himself is in line to take home the top prize at this year’s Oscars, as he’s favored to win the award for Best Director.

In Chicago recently, where Slumdog Millionaire was screened at the Chicago International Film Festival, Boyle took a few minutes out of his busy schedule for me. We had a sit-down to discuss his experiences filming in India, as well as his hopes for the film. Chuck Koplinski: If your films are any indication, you seem to me a very optimistic person. The characters in your movies are really run through the ringer but by the end there’s some sort of redemption or chance at a better life. Danny Boyle: You have to be very careful when you make a film because you don’t think about them in terms of other things you’ve made. Occasionally, you’ll do a scene and you’ll say ‘This is exactly the same scene we did in the other film.’ But when you go out to do publicity that’s when it becomes more obvious, when people ask you questions, especially the last couple years.

C.K.: I guess that’s our urge to apply the auteur theory, as flawed as that may be. Danny Boyle: Well, when I read a piece in which that theory is applied to other directors, I think ‘That’s interesting.’ But I tend not to think about making those connections between films. Obviously, the thing that attracted me to Slumdog was that the main character was an underdog and that there were great odds against him. I like that very much. I like to be able to tell a big story with small people and that’s what this script has. C.K.: I know this was the first time you worked in India and that you also used nontraditional actors. How did that change the way you approached making Slumdog? Danny Boyle: I quickly learned that you can’t control India in any way, shape or form. There’s a billion people there, a good-sized population for a planet let alone the relatively small place they are in. If you do nothing but think of all of the difficulties you’re going to encounter, you’re dead, so you just have to embrace the environment and see what it can teach you. My main goal was that people who see the film would have a sense of what it was like to be there.

C.K.: The child actors in the film come off so naturally. Did you take a similar approach working with them as you did in capturing Mumbai? Danny Boyle: They’re great actors. The kids there, even as young as seven years old, have already been to loads of movies; they know movie quotes, and they’ll do the dances from their movies there. As a result, the kids we worked with were natural performers.

Two of the little ones were from the slums and we sent them to school. To get into school in India you have to have a birthday and they didn’t even know what day they were born on. We set it up so that there is a sum of money for them that’s been put aside that they will get if they stay in school until they are 16 and in Mumbai, it will be a lot of money.

C.K.: There’s scuttlebutt on the Web that you might be returning to the 28 Days Later series. Any truth to that? Danny Boyle: Well, we have an idea. The thing about a franchise is that you have to work it out economically and see if they think it can make back the money that is spent on the film. To do this new one, it will have a scale larger than the previous two and it will be a challenge to pull off. It’s set in a remote area that will be hard to access. What I like about coming here is that these films have a following in the states that they don’t have in England, which makes me want to work harder to do a good film.