Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle has nailed nearly every genre in cinema and now, after turning down the opportunity to direct the fourth instalment of Alien, he has opted to try his hand at science fiction. The cult director has already had an astonishing career, winning twenty-four awards along the way for films such as Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and 28 Days Later.

On a chilly Monday afternoon in London, Danny Boyle took time out of his busy schedule to talk to Pure Movies about Sci-Fi, romance and his new film, Sunshine…

So, Danny, was it your idea to make a Science Fiction movie or were you drawn into it by Alex Garland?

Danny Boyle: It was actually Alex’s script that drew me into it, because he had this fantastic idea about eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb, and of course it was attached to an amazing notion about the sun. There’s never been a film about the sun before, so it was an incredible experience to work on something like this, and you could actually feel your brain swelling with the enormity of such a premise. It was good to be able to feed that back to the actors to make their performances more efficient.

It must have been hard to fill the footsteps of classic Sci-Fi films…

We tried to follow the pattern of great sci-fi movies like Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey by filming in a narrow corridor. This was a weird sci-fi in its own right, but it boils down to basically a ship, a crew and a signal. It was bizarre to work in such classic circumstances, but it was like creating an original movie at the same time because a film based around the sun has never been made before.

Were you not linked to the fourth Alien movie at one point?

I actually backed out of that because I was intimidated by the special effects, but doing a sci-fi was on the radar. And while I was making Sunshine, I’m sure its true for a lot of directors, I realised I was a big fan of this genre. I always go to the premieres of sci-fi movies such as Contact and Alien: Resurrection, and I don’t do that with other films so it was nice to be a part of this sort of film.

How was the film received in America?

It’s funny because there’s a part in the film where there’s a little hope that shines through, and then we dash that almost immediately after introducing it, and that killed the Americans! They will do anything for hope, even if it means sacrificing all levels of plausibility, and they didn’t like what we did there at all.

Did making Sunshine perfect in terms of special effects prove expensive?

It was filmed in the UK and was therefore cheaper than other films, but $45 million is a decent budget and we did manage to stick to it. We had more freedom because we didn’t do it at Pinewood Studios, we decided to do it at the same place as 28 Days Later, therefore really made our money go further. The place we filmed it at was a lot smaller, but we got used to that, making it as real as possible for the actors as it would be inside the spacecraft.

Is it true that you also made the actors stay in student accommodation in London for two weeks so that they could get the feel for what it would be like to be together for as long as their characters have in Sunshine?

Yes, they had quite an experience with that, sharing toilets and sharing a kitchen. Apparently, they decided to cook fish one night and the dig smelled like that for two weeks.

How did you create the CG?

We used a company, MPC, who did the Harry Potter and Narnia films, and obviously their work is quite technical in terms of what they have to do when they create a dragon’s tail, or a snake. This was a chance for them to do something totally artistic and a little different by creating a solar system that the audience could be sucked into, and instead of doing one small aspect of a creature they had total control over the whole project.

How accurate are the scientific elements of the film?

Well, we brought in Dr. Brian Cox to check over the script and remove anything that was wrong, but Alex’s script was written quite accurately and by reading it you can tell he’s a big fan of sci-fi and knows what he’s talking about. But the fact that the sun is going to die is true, and that aspect of the science is definitely sound. Even though it will happen in a very long time, that important fact is that it will happen.

If it was going to happen next year, how would you spend your last year on earth?

I’ve recently returned from a visit to the Taj Mahal in India that I’ve never been to before, and it was the most beautiful and romantic place I’ve ever seen, and I’m not really a romantic guy. So I’d go back there, and I’d urge others to do something as equally romantic.

What did you learn about yourself after making this movie?

That I never want to do another sci-fi! You’ll often find that unless they have a contractual obligation, directors tend not to go back into space, and I think that’s because the standard set by classics is so high that you have to get to that point reached by them, and its fucking exhausting doing that, especially as you’ve got to do it at every point throughout the film, and what’s more you’ve got to push everyone else to that standard.

What conventions or standards did you feel you had stick to? Did you abide by any specific rules previously created by the classic sci-fis?

Well, we tried a romance but realised that it didn’t work because it hadn’t been done before. 2010: The Year We Made Contact tried to do it, but even there it didn’t take off, so we decided to leave it out. Renoir once said that on set you should always leave the door open for life to walk in, and a convention of science-fiction films made in space is that you can’t leave that door open, and you have to have everything in order before you set out on the journey.

You have worked with Alex Garland before when you brought The Beach to the screen, and with Irvine Welsh on Trainspotting. Have you any plans to make any other novels into movies?

My favourite one is actually already being done. It’s a novel called Blindness, and it involves an all-blind cast, so exactly how you go about doing that is going to be quite interesting to see.

What is next for you then?

I’m going to be filming in Mumbai for Slumdog Millionaire, a script written by Simon Beaufoy [The Full Monty], and the casting is currently the problem because it involves two Indian brothers and a sister, at ages 8, 12 and 16, so that’s what’ll be keeping me busy for a while!