Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/569837
Photos: xxxxx f eclecticism is the hallmark of an accomplished director, then Danny Boyle is up there with the best of them. He's made movies big (The Beach) and small (Shallow Grave); crowded (Slumdog Millionaire) and lonely (127 Hours); he's gone to outer space (Sunshine) and sat in scuzzy drug dens (Trainspotting). For his efforts, he won a DGA and Academy Award in 2009 for Slumdog, received a prestigious British Film Institute fellowship, and even got a Primetime Emmy Award for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The restless enthusiasm and hyperactivity that characterizes his films is reflected in the man himself. This is not a self-regarding auteur, but rather an inquisitive, exuberant character, still maintaining an air of wide-eyed interest in everything around him. Born and brought up in a small town in England's industrial northwest, not far from Manchester, Boyle worked his way into directing via theater, making his name at the celebrated Royal Court. After learning his craft on a series of TV shows for the BBC in the late '80s and early '90s, Boyle broke into films with Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting (1996), two cult hits made in Scotland that established him as a talent to watch. He eventually moved up to bigger budgets and American backing for The Beach (2000). But he was not enamored with the Hollywood-style of moviemaking and re- turned to smaller films with Slumdog Millionaire, and followed up that international From the drug hallucinations of Trainspotting to the teeming streets of Mumbai in Slumdog Millionaire and the solitary mountain ordeal of 127 Hours, Danny Boyle has brought humanity and a unique visual flair to unexpected places. Who knows what he'll find inside the head of Steve Jobs in his upcoming bio of the Apple co-founder? I The of By Andrew Pulver Photographed by Jay Brooks MANY MANY SIDES SIDES DANNY DANNY BOYLE BOYLE dga quarterly 29