Danny Boyle Quotes

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.

I've always wanted to do a space movie.

It's a nice way to put the focus back on this simple act... if someone creates you.

I was brought up a very strict Catholic and I don't practice anymore or anything.

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.

Theres a certain truth that you do end up making the same film again and again so if you vary the genre you have a chance of breaking that cycle.

For us, destiny always feels... if you obey, it's almost a passive thing.

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.

What you do is take the power [popularity] gives you - which is very temporary and minor but significant - and use it. The danger is that you use it on a vanity project that no one wants to watch.

One of the things in the Mary Shelley [Frankenstein] is that the creature tells his story, so this begins with the creature's point of view. So, it literally starts with the creature opening his eyes and is born - but is obviously in his 30s. But because they're the creator and the created we thought it would be really interesting if they could look at each other every other night and play each other's roles.

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

Actors are steeped in a world of agents and where the next job is coming from and what are their expenses and what is the hotel like. You want to take them out of that world and dump them into another world, so that when you meet them on the screen they don't seem like the guy who was in two others movies that year.

Its easy to like the most popular films, but I have a great fondness for A Life Less Ordinary.

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.

I find it difficult enough being called "Mr. Boyle," which as I age I'm increasingly called.

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.

I trained in the theatre.

You live your life and it ends quite quickly and all you can do with it is pass it on decently to someone else. Whether directly or indirectly, behave decently to other people.

The extraordinary thing about India is that it's such a family place. It's full of families everywhere.

One of Dickens' biggest influences was the growth of London as a Victorian city, and the extremes being created as it expanded.

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.

The awards season gives a chance for independent films to have a bit of longevity in the press and the media.