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dga quarterly 31 PHOTO: (TOP) 20TH CENTURY FOX/PHOTOFEST; (BOTTOM) GRAMERCY PICTURES/EVERETT A: The main thing theater taught me was a love of ac- tors. I don't think you can do theater unless you love actors on some level. You might be unpleasant to them, which some directors are—they're ghastly unpleasant to them sometimes. But you've got to love the acting, the craft of acting. It became a huge help with film; it seems to me, often, because the actors arrive at the last minute and there's so little time for them because of all the technicalities involved, directors are often scared of them, or wary of them. Whereas I love actors and I love involving them in the process as much as possible. I always try and get a lot of rehearsal, if I can, no matter what we're doing, so the actors feel like they own it a bit. Q: You made a move to the BBC in 1987, and that got you behind a camera. But it doesn't sound like it was very straightforward. A: That's right. The BBC didn't advertise directing jobs, but I applied for a producer's job in Northern Ireland. At the time Northern Ireland was very tense politically, so nobody applied for the job, which is the reason I got it. The job basically was as a commission- ing editor, commissioning projects, and I told them, when I got the job, I was going to direct the TV shows as well—but I won't charge, so we'll save the money on the director's fee. They were not sure about that at all, but I had a very good reference from [playwright] David Hare, because of the Royal Court connection. They were very impressed with that. So they let me do it, and I learned on the job. The first thing I commis- sioned, I directed. It was a show called Scout by a won- derful Irish writer named Frank McGuinness. Q: What was the steepest part of the learning curve? A: I had to learn about a camera, basically. It is so weird when you come from the three-dimensional world of theater. You are suddenly in a two-dimensional creative world, which you then have to make feel three- dimensional. But Orson Welles said that you can learn everything you need to know in an afternoon from a decent cameraman. And it's true. And I had a great cameraman called Phil Dawson who taught me every- thing I needed to know. Plus I had a great Irish actor, Ray McAnally. I think he could tell I didn't know what I was doing. So whenever we were doing close-ups, he'd say, 'Danny, I'll do you the line this side of camera, and then I'll do it again the other side of camera.' That way, when you get to editing, you've got options. Other directors will understand how wonderful that is that someone helps you out enormously like that. Q: So you took what you learned on one TV film and applied it to the next one? A: Each time I did a film I got a bit more ambitious— but made some terrible mistakes. But it was a great training. That's the wonderful thing about film: There are so many jobs in it that suit different temperaments and different personalities. I'm working with an editor at the moment [Elliot Graham], on Steve Jobs, and to me the work of editing is just the most extraordinary mystery. You need a great editor because films are made in editing more than any single place. But great editors are strange creatures who sit in a room of their own and show you things that you never thought of. My approach has always been to try to work with lots of people who I regard as mini-directors. By that I mean that they have the sensibility of a storyteller, and are obsessed with an idea and how to convey it to someone. But for some reason they don't want the has- sle or the spotlight of being the actual director. They don't want to have to get up in the morning and tell everybody what to do—it just doesn't suit them. GROWING UP: (above) The Beach, shot in Thailand, was Boyle's first Hollywood experi- ence, a far cry from his first film Shallow Grave (below); (opposite) Trainspotting rep- resented a big leap in Boyle's filmmaking and visual style.