Danny Boyle on Depicting Murdoch, AI, Bond, and ‘28 Years Later’

The town is presented by Fandool. Have you heard the news? Fandool is now available everywhere. And when we say everywhere, we mean everywhere. Tallahassee, Florida, El Paso, Texas, Athens, Georgia, Madison, Wisconsin, Birmingham, Alabama. Alright, you get the picture. Wherever you're watching, whatever game you're fired up for, Fandool is there to bring you closer to the action. So make your picks and play wherever the games take you. Download the Fandool app to get started. Age and location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. See Fandool.com for eligibility, gambling problem called 1-800-Gambler. Our guest today really doesn't need an introduction. He's one of the lions of British filmmaking. I first got into his work probably 28 days later, train spotting that era. He's an Oscar-winning filmmaker. He directed one of my favorite films of all time, Slumdog Millionaire, which is an amazing business story as much as a creative story, considering that film was left for dead and then resurrected and grossed hundreds of millions of dollars in one best picture, which is still one of the best stories in Hollywood history. He has directed many, many films that you love, including a new film called Ink, which I very much enjoyed and I think you will too if you haven't seen it. It's especially topical these days, which of course I love, so please welcome Danny Boyle. So I want to start with a question because we'll get into the film. We'll get into Ink and what drew you to that. But one of the themes of the film is this notion of a disruptor and an outsider who comes into the media world, Rupert Murdoch in the 60s and 70s in the Fleet Street, sort of old media, kind of very hoikty toyty, British media, and disrupts it. And I kept thinking to myself while watching it and having followed your career. This is in some ways the Danny Boyle story. Do you consider yourself a disruptor in the same kind of way and do you still, to this day, all these years later, consider yourself a disruptor? That's a very glamorous sort of thing. The treater, and I'm sure, maybe Murdoch saw himself that way. He certainly says in the film, he implies that in the film about the way that Australians are viewed by the establishment, coming to London in the 60s. But my point of reference was the other guy, Larry Lamb. So I saw the stage play, which was a wonderful event. But it was very, very much dominated by Murdoch and by Bertie Carvell's extraordinary performance of Murdoch. We're very lucky because we got, I had this very difficult job to tell Bertie that we were going to make a film because he got a tony for his performance and an Olivier, I think. And I had to wring him up and say, I can't give you this part because I want to reel Australian to play it. But would you be in the film anyway? Bless him he is. And he's wonderful in the film he plays Hugh Cudlett, the editor of The Daily Mirror, which was a great, very dominant paper at the time. When I saw his performance, I kept seeing the other guy and thought, it's that other guy's story. And I did, to be honest, identify with Larry Lamb, he's from the North, like I'm from. And he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about the way he's been treated by the South. And I, a lot of people from the North who, you know, mix it up in London and come to work in the establishment have that, it's one of the, it's one of the energies that drives you forward really and influences your own behaviour. And you could call that disruptor, you, you're not really conscious of it as a disruptor. So you think of yourself more as a, I think of myself in punk terms like that and punks are disruptors, but I like the energy of it more than anything else. I'm quite happy to do a film that, I'd love to do a film that connects everyone in the same place. I love that about cinema that we all gather to celebrate something together. So I'm not. But you came up in the early to mid 90s amid the indie film explosion and it was a reaction of sorts to the American studio system of the 80s. And it feels like you were in your own way part of that disruption. And do you, but do you consider yourself still to this day? Someone who operates outside the system, you've gone back and forth, you've done studio movies, you've done movies that are shoestring budgets, do you consider yourself an outsider still? Yeah, I like to try and set up the work with writers principally from here, have only ever done an Aaron Salking project. Steve Jobs. Yeah, the Steve Jobs. And I've always worked with writers here and set up the projects here and so that's something that I feel very, that's a key part of my approach is to keep control of the work like that. So you project driven, you haven't said, okay, I should probably work in the studio system for a little bit or I need to pull back because I don't want to be sucked into that system. Oh no, it's project driven. It's kind of like you come across an idea or a script or whatever it is. So like the Salking was, which is the Steve Jobs movie, the Salking was sent by this producer Scott Rudin and you know, when you get an Aaron Salking script, if you ever do, it is an extraordinary experience reading it before anybody else, well, before I'm sure you'll think you're ready at first, but I'm sure he's done, but that's okay. We don't talk about him. Feeling like the first person is reading it, it is an extraordinary experience and you just can't, you go, well, I've got to do that. It's kind of like, it's a glorious celebration of words, you know, and obviously of this extraordinary figure as well. So yeah, the interesting thing about this material is it feels like an origin story of a supervillain. That's how I looked at ink where you're seeing the creation of Rupert Murdoch. Did you have a perspective going into this on the Murdoch family and the Murdoch media empire and what they have wrought for better and worse upon the world? I think there's a kind of monsterizing has obviously landed, you know, and is the perceived wisdom of him now. There's a lot of Murdoch media about the Murdoch's. I've been in some of it, obviously a very successful television show, a succession about it, many documentaries, many movies. You're sort of adding to this canon, but did you come into it thinking anything about the family? Well, I met him. Not for this project, because Slumdog Millionaire, which you very kindly referred to at the beginning, made him a lot of money. It was for, you know, they were the studio that picks it up and made a huge amount of money with it. So because of that, you get invited to a lunch party and a garden somewhere, I can't remember. And it was an extremely uneventful meeting, I have to say. Thank you for your service. I love to report something significant from it, but there was absolutely no. No, there wasn't even that. It was just a lower one. Anyway, what I really admired, and it's interesting, because we just talked about Sorkin. James Graham has got some similarities with him, you know, as a writer. And what I loved about James' portrayal is that it was surprising. And you come in on a surprising note, whereas I think there's an expected note, which is lovely to contradict on the way in, and that he did see himself as an underdog and connected with, and tried to create a team of people who felt like underdogs. It's very appealing in Britain, as she talked about in the beginning of feeling like that in a way. It's a very attractive way to work. And I think it probably drove them to work like that on Fleet Street. You thought, that's what I need, a group of the spider people with a chip on their shoulder always something to prove. Well, that's been his, that's been his career. I mean, he did that with the New York Post in America. He did that with the Fox Network, which was programming shows that the other networks were looking down on and saying, why would an animated family work in prime time? He's done that with Fox News, where they always talk about the audience at Fox News, which to them is the people that feel disenfranchised by the rest of the media. For better or worse, I'm not endorsing Fox News. But there is a sense that Murdoch has built his entire media empire on that one principle of taking people that don't feel like they fit in to the rest of the media, giving them that outlet and making a lot of money on it. Yeah. And it's interesting that you make that arc across his whole career, because that's the purpose of the film is to show the starting point of something that I believe has led to where we are now. Oh, talk about that because there's a lot of films this season that are based on where we are in quotation marks. There's the Sam Altman movie, there's the Elon Musk movie, there's the social reckoning, which is about Facebook and what it has wrought upon the culture. And you can draw a line from that from this moment all the way back to these moments in the 70s and 80s when the culture shifted. And Murdoch was right at the fulcrum of that shift. And do you see it that way? Well, it's interesting. We were talking just before we came in, we were talking about Martin McDonald's film, Wild Horse 9. And I know Martin uses the Kennedy assassination as the point where fake news or misinformation really, that was the origin of it. That's the spark of it where it first began. And I always introduced this film because, going around, no film festivals and everything I was introduced to film by saying 1969 was an extraordinary year that it was the year we went to the moon, it was the year that Nixon was first selected, it was the year of Woodstock, it was the year the Beatles began to break up, you know, all these kind of, it was the year of Butchcastle. in the Sundance Kid, and when I'm in Spain, I say it's the year that Javier Bardem was born, which gets a nice reaction. He's universal, come on. But none of those things have any significance for our lives, no, compared to these two men meeting in this restaurant in London, and launching the first tabloid with tabloid ethics or principles or operating. And the film is a depiction of 1969, 1970, but I believe it's a contemporary film, I think, and we try to bring it up to date at the end. And that has been difficult, because we lacked permissions. We got lots of permissions from the Sun, because they light to the stage play. And so we got very fortunate that we got, you know, so the paper didn't have to be called the glow or something like that, you know. But they denied certain permissions. But then when we went back for them, for the ambitions to use some of the other headlines in the, in the epilogue, they declined. And Fox News obviously declined for stage that we wanted to use that showed this seed point arriving at where we are now. Yeah, it does, it really raises this issue of art versus commerce and what you need to know versus what you want to know. And I'm curious as an artist, when you look at the media landscape, where do you stand on that? Do you, do you think that the news media has a responsibility to be above the purine interest and not just serve what people want? Because if you see it across the landscape right now, if you talk to Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, he says, I'm a free speech absolutist. And that governs what how he approaches Facebook. And it governs obviously his business, which is dependent on that same with Rupert. But the woman who wrote the book, which I've read the book, it's very good, it's very good to read the book. If you read it, she's not allowed to speak. It's promotions of the book is she, she just sits there in silence because they've threatened, presumably they've threatened something. Well, Rupert, it might be a free speech absolutist, but he didn't give permission for Fox News clips to be in your movie. Yeah, and one of those headlines, you'll know this headline, because I've been at film festivals where people don't really know this headline. One of those headlines was The Truth, which is the famous one about the infamous one, the worst, possibly the worst headline in history, which told the lie about Hillsborough, masqueraded as The Truth. And McKenzie, Kelvin McKenzie's apology as many times for it as we know, but the people of Liverpool will rightly never forgive him for that ever. And so we wanted to, the play, the screenplay, the concern of the characters, the drama is partly about these questions of where do we locate the truth. And it seems almost quaint these days, considering the cesspool online, that these debates were being had in real time. Should we do this? It almost feels like a nostalgic exercise to look at a film like this, oh, wow, they used to debate whether it was okay to put this into the public sphere. Now, instant, and the decision makers aren't quote unquote journalists that are trained to have these discussions. They're executives with engagement metrics to meet each, each month and with an audience to grow around the world and data backing up what certain content delivers. It's a completely different landscape yet it all kind of goes back to that moment. I think the key is, for me anyway, is obviously when you, when you go into the press, there are certain moments, there are certain events that you realize were, despite the daily, whatever the daily realities of economics and audience and expectations and needs are, there are certain key moments which are not protected, but which were mountains that stand alone. One is Watergate, obviously. But another one and we had it here was the phone hacking and the exposing of phone hacking here, which again comes up in the epilogue. And I think provided that the Murdoch Empire, sorry, for those who don't know, the Murdoch Empire was accused of phone hacking. There was a whole series of proceedings here and there was James Murdoch was essentially blamed by the Murdoch family for what happened. So the key thing for me is that the ability for independent journalists to hold up a truth to power is the key thing. And I think that that has, that still survives, I think. Do you see it in the Murdoch Empire? You know, it's the Wall Street Journal. There were the one outlet that was willing to publish stuff about Donald Trump that other outlets were not. So it's still there, the danger, obviously. And we don't really get into this, but the danger is when the, the newspapers have gone and the portals are just our screens that will those journalists be allowed to hold truth up to power because the power then will be the tech giants who control these platforms. And obviously the rise of AI and replacing journalists with AI is another compounding factor of that. It feels there, I mean, I know this is very romantic, but I don't care because there are, you think about there are certain pillars that hold up our roof. And our roof is held up by one of the pillars is teaching and what, which could also be under threat. And one of the other pillars is the health service that holds up the roof of our heads. And another one of those pillars is independent journalism. And you know, another wide would argue is the arts. And these pillars, if they're demolished, will we have a roof left to bring the young up under? You know, for them to learn civility and understanding of the need to exist in a community, not through a portal. It's obviously to say, and it's obviously very romantic, but I do genuinely believe it. And it sort of hovers behind the reason for making the film. You mentioned AI. Where are you in the AI debate? Because you used it in small snippets in this film with a Margaret Thatcher, head swap and a couple of other little things. Where are you in the filmmaker kind of spectrum of whether AI is a tool? Is it a threat? Is it business as usual? Is it revolutionary? It's a part of it's a part of the toolbox that the visual effects companies use now. It just is. And we we used it very sparingly and we we were very careful to make sure it didn't replace anyone, you know, that we didn't even notice watching the movie. I had to. It was very important for us that I didn't want to fact your imitator because the point at which she appears in the film, it's a it's documented that she used to visit his office, Larry Lam's office, late at night, after the addition had gone out and they drink whiskey together and she did organize his nighthood. With her shoes off, I should know. With her shoes off? Quite correct. That's what they say, curled up on the sofa. So I didn't want an impersonator. I wanted her to be it. And of course, so we got an impersonator in to play the whole scene. You had an act to do it. You just did a face swap. And then we so that it was her because then you move very quickly into real people from the news headlines today. So I wanted her to be very much positive. And I got to be honest, I declined to ask the estate for permission to do that. I don't think the estate of people like Margaret Thatcher should have control over our ability to insist on ideas in art about what her influence was on our lives. So that was very important to me. Would you do you think there will be an entirely AI-generated movie that will find a mainstream audience within the next five, 10 years? I've got no idea. I think there's obviously the gaming world I'm not really part of. So I don't understand that hybrid. I think it'll come from that world. Yeah, it'll be so photo-realistic that filmmakers will take what's available and add an element. It'll probably happen in animation first. But I think it will move over to photo-realistic characters at some point. The question is whether audiences will find a connection, whether the uncanny valley issue can be resolved. And something it'll happen in two years, something it'll take 10, but I think it will happen. I have to pay tribute to a VFX company, a union VFX because we didn't have very much money. We found it very difficult to raise the money for this film. Why? Well, you can. I get it, but you tell the story. I've no idea. They didn't say why they wouldn't give us the money. So we had to get Tessa Ross to sum it up. We managed to get the money off studio canal who full disclosure are involved in this event. But they didn't give us enough money. But they gave us they were brave. They gave us the money, whereas a lot of people wouldn't give us the money. And I think my own personal theory, Tessa, is here, I think, is that she only gave her the money because she does such a hit with them with Conclave. She made so much money. Anyway, this is a way finance works. Anyway, we got we got we got some money and it was we're very lucky and then and then studio canal hooked up with Netflix who bought it for America and they're involved in this as well, full disclosure to everyone. And they were and they've been really good partners because it's because you can imagine there are pressures and they have been. Well, what pressures were there? Did they. I mean, were financiers afraid of the Murdoch's? Were they afraid of the subject matter? I don't know what you do. And again, it's this question. It's the same question as and I'm not comparing myself to an independent journalist like Greg Davis or something. But if somebody does come along with a story about Zuckerberg or about. Apple, you know, about the port, are they going to be on platformed on their platforms, which will be the only ones we're receiving news through or independent opinion on really. So I don't know how it works, but I know we're struggled. And if you're being polite, you could say it's because it was a stage play. And therefore, people think stage plays usually don't work on on film. I contend that they can do Amadeus being a great example. Dangerous liaisons, Stephen Freyers, wonderful film, being another example. They both started a stage play. But if you're being polite, you would say that was the reluctance to finance. But you never know. If you want to start a conspiracy theory, Matt, you're very well. Sure. We love that. How much is the degree of difficulty of a project and getting the financing impact your willingness to pursue it? Because with your resume, there are lots of projects that you could sign on to and do. And they would be great and they would be relatively easy to accomplish. Yet you're doing a lot of these films that have to scrape the money together. And don't have an obvious path to even getting distributed. You've said that you didn't even know if anyone would see this movie. Why, at your point in your career, do you do that? Is it just the material or do you like that kind of challenge? It's really wonderful if you can create a siege mentality when you make a film, literally. And I have to, she's also here as well. I have to pick out Tracy Seawood, who was our chief general in the siege that we were under. And you feel like that? You don't have enough money. How are you going to make it work? People like her make it work for you somehow. And I love the energy it gives you to it. The quest you feel you've got to prove yourself. And I like that feeling as well. It keeps you humble because nothing is certain. And you think it may not get distributed. You know, it may not. Who knows what will happen to it. But I love that about it. And I think it's appropriate. So in this case, especially to the subject matter, I think if you were showered with money, you'd be under enormous pressure to manipulate the film in a certain way. Well, and you had one of the most extraordinary situations like this come up where you made slumdog millionaire. And it was abandoned by Warner Brothers. And Fox Searchlight at the time came on board, picked up the movie. And then it goes on to win best picture and gross hundreds of millions of dollars. And I imagine that would change your outlook on how the movie business works and how the decision makers, whether they really know what they're doing. Yeah, well, we all know the William Goldman. Nobody knows anything really. So we're all, and you're only as good as your last film. You know, it's very nice of you to say I could get put my shoes on anywhere really. But I don't think that's true. And I think you're only as good as your last film. You get lots of offers. But I've always chosen to try and work on projects that are generated here with the exception of the Air and Salk in you. Yeah, how do you see the British film industry these days? I mean, there's a lot of talk in the US about a federal tax incentive to lure productions back from the UK to make American movies in the US. Do you see that as a threat to the British film industry or is that sort of outside of the way that you operate on British originated films? No, I'm aware of tax credits. We're trying to set up a film at the moment. We're filming in Iceland and they've got tax credits. We want to film in Iceland and they've got. So I'm very aware of tax credits and no important, they are. I hope we can preserve our industry as much as possible. Not for its own sake, but because of the stories we want to tell with the opportunities we get with finance or tax credits, yeah. And but do you see what's going on in the US as a threat to that? I suppose on a pure economic basis, you may say it is. I don't know. The community here has grown so much over the past decade. Thanks to these aggressive tax credits. I mean, part of the reason why the industry has grown here and why there are so many more filmmaking community members here is because of these incentives. And I've talked to people in different territories who are looking at what's going on in the US and say that is a threat to the industry that we've been able to build here. But have you ever made a film? Like you've been involved in the day-to-day process of making a film or more an extended period of time? The tax credits because they work. They do work. You regenerate the money you spend. And by the money, I'll just mean like buying coffee or kind of-- No, there's a multiplier. They talk about the multiplier and whether we can quibble, whether it's 7% or 10% or whatever it is. But the spend does happen. But it's a race. It's also a race to the bottom. Some would say that these territories are all trying to one-up each other. And it gets to the point where the UK government is subsidizing this to a pretty significant degree. I don't really know enough about Andy Burnham's mind. We'll think on the film industry. We're trying to get him. We sent an invitation to him. We've got a Q&A and Manchester next Friday. So we sent him and Everton are playing Chelsea. That same weekend. Oh, God. At the Hill Dickinson Stadium. So we thought, oh, all right. So we tried to get him to come along. And if I find out anything exclusive-- Please do. --make sure you know it from-- You know my email. This episode is brought to you by the new movie, "The Social Reckoning." This electrifying thriller from Aaron Sorkin is based on the true story of the Facebook insider who uncovered what the company knew about the harm its platforms were causing and the Wall Street Journal reporter determined to expose it. Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, and Jeremy Strong star in this timely David versus Goliath story that sparked a reckoning against one of the world's most powerful companies. The social reckoning, now playing in theaters. The way you approach the filmmaking, you have a pretty definitive style, a very kinetic style of filmmaking. Where do you think you developed that? Where did that come from? This notion of action and movement on camera and keeping the audience looking and new stuff coming at them? Where did you develop that? I love Tarkovsky films. But I tried to make one once for television. And it was Tarkovsky-esque and it never made an "esque" film in anyone. They just did not work because you think, "Why won't I watch the "esque" version when I can see the original?" So, no, it was music, I think, more than anything. My relationship is with music more than films in a way. And it stirs you here as a music when you're directing, when you're putting the film together? I collate a lot of music, which I share with the editor on each project. And so on this one, I had a bunch of songs, some of which appeared, some of which are not. But they just feel like the film in some way. And then I share them with the editors, a wonderful editor, finals on this project. And then she picks, "Wow, yeah, I'm going to use that." So it's a collaboration at Rome music, rather than a kind of template that you go, "This is going to do for that scene. This is that scene." It's something that we find out as we make the film. And it keeps the process live in the editing. Even though the actors are finished and have signed on to another film, you're still exploring the different ways that the film can obviously be edited. But also that the whole scenario can feel different because of different choices of music. I love keeping it, and looking for your ending. You're always looking for your ending when you're filming. You don't know going in. The last shot. What you do, you have a version. But you should always be looking. They always say that, you're looking for your ending. And they say that's the difference with streaming. Is that the last thing they want you to find is an ending. Because obviously they want it to go on and on and on, in a way. But the wonderful thing about a singular film is that you can look for that ending. And the more perfect it is, the more it finishes everything. It doesn't prevent you doing a series, a sequel, which we've proved a couple of times, but it should do, in a way. Yeah, speaking of the 28 days franchise, what's going on with the third movie in that franchise? Well, Alex has written a fantastic script. You mean someone to say yes? Yeah, we just need money and all that kind of stuff really. But is it happening? I hope it will. It's kind of, I mean, Alex has been off doing his own film at the moment, a huge project. So it's on the back burner at the moment. It's funny because that's obviously Sony picked up that franchise and they have released the last two. So it's not necessarily an independent versus studio issue on whether you get the movies done. And I was thinking back to your experience with the Bond movie where you were developing that for a long time. And then obviously didn't agree on some of the script issues with that. What did you learn from that experience working on the Bond project? Just so we had a wonderful, it was a wonderful script by John Hodge and we just, I think they just lost, they just got cold feet about it. And so it's always nice. What about it made them have cold feet? Because in the eventual movie, no time to die, there's a big character choice in that movie. And I think we can say this without a spoiler, but Bond dies. What was it about your version that could have been more troublesome than that? Well, I think that was all, that was all, that was all agreed on beforehand. But yeah, it was other things. I think they just got cold feet about it and wanted a different kind of script. And when that happens at that kind of level, you far better off passing company, you know. So, and carrying on in your different ways, really. So, I mean, I tried to bring that aesthetic to it is which I'm describing which is like home-baked siege mentality and it's probably not appropriate for a James Bond movie, which is a huge example. Honestly, it would be great. But now they've got a Canadian directing. Are you okay with that? Oh, he's a wonderful director. Did you see the bit of June 3 at the start of the Odyssey? Oh, it's amazing. Oh, my God. Yeah, it looks amazing. I mean, if I was Chris Nolan, I wouldn't have let that be at the front of my film. They showed about 10 minutes at the Cinemacon convention and I think it was the same footage before the audit. It's pretty amazing. I know. Would you ever return to Bond? Oh, I know. I know. No, you could. Why not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazon's going to, you know, they're going to crank these out every few years now. It's not going to be like Barbara Broccoli deciding, oh, we'll do it when I'm ready. They're going to, there'll be opportunities. We're trying to get this Antarctic a film made. That's the, that's the next priority. Oh, that's, that'll be your next film hopefully. Oh, wait. No, wait. It's very difficult to raise money for it because it's, well, Antarctica, because we want to use Antarctica itself as well as part of the filming process. What's hard about shooting an Antarctica? It's very, very expensive mass. And yeah, and it's inexpensive and it's an unusual story. So it'll be, it's tricky to finance yet, but we're working on it. It'll depend really on if we're going to try actors to make it palatable enough. Is, is there a dream project or a dream genre or a dream type of movie that you have not made that you would want to do? I mean, this is a period film. Ink is a period film, in a sense, except it's not, not really. I mean, they were period clothes and stuff like that. But, no, I, I made a television series called Mr. Rose Virgins, which was a study of the kind of industrial revolution, really. The brilliant book by Jane Rogers, if you're a wonderful book. And I'd love to make another film about the Enlightenment. That's an interesting one. Why? Just the most extraordinary period. You know, it's the first time any human being went up in a balloon and could see what we looked like from above, looking down. And they used to take pork painters up there with them so that they could paint a picture of what it looked like so they could bring it down and show it to everyone. It's an extraordinary period for surgery, for so many things, for the arts, you know. So, yeah, that's, that's a dream project. Yeah. I've heard people say that they're going to look back at this moment in history with the AI revolution, like some of the things that happen in the Enlightenment, where humans are going to get to do things that they've never done before. I don't know if I agree. Do you agree? I think it's, I think it was, and I say this with the greatest multiple respect, it doesn't really matter what we think. Because we're all, we'll always have a hesitation and a tendency to look at the worst possible outcome that it might have. And to look at it's in comparison that it will never, it can never be as good. It matters what young people think and what they're going to do with it. It's their world that they, and we can give advice and we should, but they should. It's the way that they inherit it. It's the question you always get at a film festival. Somebody says, I'm starting off if you've got any advice. And you say, don't look up to people like me. Whatever you do, it's over. That's all done. Just think about building relationships with your peer group, with writers, editors, cinematographers, designers, actors of your own peer group. And the movies, if they're going to survive whatever revolution, are vampiric for new ideas. And that's where the new ideas are going to come from, not from me. But you and I can live forever potentially. If someone said, I don't believe you, I'm going to take something away from what you have done in your career, the films you have made. What is it that you would like someone starting out to look at your films and take away? I'm not suggesting this. It's my belief that they, and it's why I didn't end up making Tarkovsky movies, Tarkovsky-esque movies, was that I really do believe in the communal experience. I think that's how movies began. They began as a public, they're a public art form. And they've been hijacked. It's been hijacked times. In a way that I admire, you know, some of the films that are hijacked to become a very specialised art form for a very restricted audience. How do you mean, high-dew films, you know, very slow, very difficult films, all that kind of stuff. Whereas I think they're a public event. Do you want the audience to be constantly entertained? Yeah. And it's a worldwide event as well. That's what's extraordinary about it, I think, is that you can be engaging in a film and a story and an idea and sulking people in India and sulking people in Japan. And I'd love that side of it. And I would, I'd always recommend, always remember that, that it's origins. That's where it came from. It came from working people after a tough week sat down and they were entertained. And it's like Scorsese says, if in that entertainment, you can smuggling interesting ideas, that's perfect. That's the chemistry that's perfect. If you can pull it off. The owl committee, if you can pull it off. So you're a smuggler of ideas. Well, you hope to think. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're talking a lot about the theatrical experience you're working with Netflix on this one. And they can bring this film to arguably more people than would see it in a theater, but it'll be mostly at home. Yeah, but I hope we'll be, I hope we will preserve them. They're very, they're releasing it for four weeks in the cinema in America. But I hope we will be on the younger generation you're talking about. I hope they will be able to preserve the cinema experience. I think it will get there. Yeah, there's something about the live events. Yeah. You know, it's like it's special. Even if you don't talk to people, you go to a football game. You don't talk to people necessarily, but you feel something different because you're communally connected rather than experiencing something through a particular portal. Yeah. I think that the rest of the industry has sort of settled on that. There was a period during COVID where the pendulum swung to the home experience. Now I think it's swinging back. We've seen some pretty promising numbers at the box office this year and even Netflix is talking about more of these theatrical releases. We'll see how that goes. They went after Warner Brothers earlier this year. And if they had gotten Warner Brothers, they probably would have gotten into the theatrical business. And I think we'll see them going a little bit more that direction. And I know filmmakers, filmmakers like you would applaud that. Certainly to preserve and enhance the live experience is a wonderful thing, I think. Yeah. All right. Well, I want to open it up to a couple questions and if it sparks something, how about back there? Thank you. Danny, you've done an incredible range of films, but I'd argue that the biggest canvas you've ever been given was your work on the 2012 Olympics in terms of storytelling and reaching an audience. I was curious as to how that impacted you as a filmmaker, storytelling, the experience of going through that and putting such an amazing thing together. Yeah, it was a huge, a huge undertaking by a huge number of people, obviously. So it's a, I tend to get, I tend to get, it tends to get pinned on me, but it was a huge collaboration among enormous number of people. I say that because actually it's the sort of outlier really because I always like to think that I make very, very different films. And I always used to say that. It's Q and A's and things like that. And then I did this Q and A in France and this French journalist stood up and says, this is nonsense. All your films are exactly the same. And I went over, yeah, what do you mean? She said, yes, they're all about, and it's always a man, with impossible odds overcoming them. And that's the story of all your films when she walked out. Where she wasn't seen at that point, where she hadn't seen trance, which is the story of a woman who's facing impossible odds who overcome them. But anyway, but the point is that how is it your question? How has it influenced me? I'm not sure it, I'm not sure it has in a way. I felt a very different, I felt a real responsibility in undertaking that, that project. I felt a real, I've been, I was brought up as a proper Olympics fan by my dad, a proper sports fan, and I've always loved the Olympics. And I've always loved something strange about it, which is that we, it's a pyramid. And at the top is who's saying bolt for, you know, just as an example. But we all feel part of that pyramid. You don't think he's an alien. You think he's one of us. And that's just something about that. Despite all the politics that's involved in the IOC and all that nonsense that's extraordinary, that connects us all across the world. And you know, it's what we're saying about cinema being seen across the world. So I relished and cherished it for that before I went back to making films about boys who are facing possible odds and overcome them. So you, since you did the 2012 opening ceremony, have you consulted it all with the LA 28 people? Ben Winston, the producer of the opening ceremony is British. Maybe you guys should start talking. I'm not a big IOC kind of guy really. Who is really? So they don't really invite me to the people than the IOC and then everyone else. Yeah, yeah. So I didn't, I didn't, I didn't really, I don't really get involved in so I'm not part of the past. see really. Okay. Another question. How about right here? Hi, Danny. I'm an aspiring filmmaker developing my my very own like feature horror film and I just wanted to ask you for a first-time director looking to make an independent film. What is the best way to find a producer who generally believes in the project and is willing to take a chance on a new filmmaker? Well, it's like a kind of impossible question to answer really because anything I say to you will you probably find is a closed door you know I'd say well right to this producer or right to that producer you've got to put yourself about really like you're doing now with this you've got to somehow hope that you find someone like I say in your peer group rather than looking high above you for someone to bestow you financing you've got to see if you can make it yourself really if you've got a great idea it'll get snapped up at some point in the process if it's a great idea because the ideas are pretty thin on the ground you know a good idea will always get through. I mean the big thing I would say is make sure you watch everything really where you know that I saw hope recently you've seen the Korean film hope yes yeah just like did you like it I mean it was all right oh my god I thought it was really out there in terms of the action I thought how the fuck if they don't mind yeah I was surprised by that as well yeah yeah yeah have you seen resident evil oh yeah yeah I mean the eight Kregas is the guy at the moment really you think so well he obviously you see everything try to yes like everything well I mean yeah I mean I used to watch a lot of kids movies when the kids were younger because obviously and you watch those most but you're in the cinema month weekends I try to be yes I try to watch as much as possible yes so what else is really impressed you this year oh god no you've caught me well I mean I loved I loved I loved obsession and back rooms and you know that whole we obviously really enjoyed the Odyssey um and I'm really looking forward to June three um but yeah no I mean lots of stuff we say all right another question I loved shallow grave when it came out and it's still one of my favorite movies ever can you talk a bit about how you got that on to screen in the in the exact tone and shape it was or well we we had so I think um so channel four it used to be run by this woman Tessa Ross down here young man just so that you know she's down here um they they developed a script shallow grave and then they sent out the the writer John Hodg who I talked about I was going to do the bond with and the producer Andrew McDonald they sent the motor look for a director and to be honest they couldn't find one and that's where I came in and I'd just seen and this is the thing about seeing everything I'd literally just seen blood simple and I said and I went into them and said oh it's a rip off a blood simple isn't it and which they weren't expecting but it was it was it was indebted massively to blood simple and we put an extra twist in it because of the twist in blood simple you know that ever ever kind of evolving landscape of you know who's who it is and all that kind of stuff um so that was and we teamed up together and the key was we got I mean we got a million pounds so to them to make the film but the only reason we got it is because we had Kerry Fox in it because Kerry Fox then was a star on the art circuit because she'd made a Jane Campeon TV series which became a film here called Angel at my table so the other two guys that we got in it were nobody's nobody was interested in them one of them was you and McGregor the other one was Chris Eckleston they carried for nothing it was Kerry Fox who got us the money for that film and it's interesting you said you liked it so much it was my dad's favorite film I would take him to every film I made and he did say the same thing he'd come out and say yeah it was good sun but it wasn't as good a shallow grave which supports my theory one of the theories I have that your first film is always your best film and blood simple is a very good example of that I think the coin brothers geniuses obviously I don't think they've ever done anything better than blood simple because they had nothing they had no money presumably they created a siege mentality to make it and there's something wonderful about it's actually I think it's to do with not knowing what you're doing which you only ever have once which is a wonderful thing actually weirdly and if you can if you can manage to keep your nerve and you don't get a lot of idiots ruining it for you if you manage to get it to the people will see that they'll sense it somehow rather than them watching perfection have you had experiences in your career where idiots have ruined a film we had one on shallow grave so channel four because obviously I was like a first time film director they put in a and the other two guys were first time because John was a doctor and Andrew hadn't produced anything before they put in this guy to kind of a what I call a primed guy to oversea's and we were doing this shot I don't know whether you remember I know you remember the film but for those who don't there's a shot at the end of Chris Eccleston in a morgue and the the trays being pushed in and we do this twirling shot above it and it was very complicated to do and we we got to the morgue and we spent all morning set it up we hadn't shot anything and he rang channel four and said and basically recommended replacing me on the film because it wasn't shooting enough you know and we stood up to him and we said to channel four no we want him to go and they said okay we'll sack him or replace him oh wow if you go over budget they sliding doors moment oh yeah and they said if you go over budget will replace you which is fair enough because we were the first times out of it but then you have the siege mentality you think right we better bring this in on budget because we're gonna get fired otherwise and it was full of all that kind of stuff it's wonderful you'll go through that as well it's like wonderful almost getting fired I know it is it's just part of it and then we'll turn around one day and people will be asking you have you got any advice you know it's like I hate to be I hate to be the French journalist here but do you do you believe that most filmmakers are making their first film over and over again I think there's a certain truth in that don't you think I mean you must see there's a consumer yeah you must see that and but someone it's interesting for someone like you because you are so eclectic in the genres in which you work and you can make a zombie film you can do a survivalist film you can do a exotic film there's on paper they don't look the same but when you watch a Danny Boyle film you certainly know you're watching a Danny Boyle film I mean it's very I suppose in one sense it's very flattering to sort of hear that sort of thing I actually what I really think is I think the greatest directors are invisible they don't have a style you think so yeah really so Coppola is invisible the greatest films you know in the godfather films and apocalypse now I mean I know he appears in apocalypse now but he is invisible you're not watching he is he is invisible and I think that is the most difficult thing to do then why do you adhere to such a unique visual style because I'm not Francis Ford Coppola and I'm aware of that and I'm messing once that they said awards do and I was a jelly meeting him I was shaking meeting him it was like you know because you meet people and you want a selfie and you can feel them as you put your arm around you can feel them shaking I was like that with Francis Ford Coppola it's just shaking I don't know what was coming out of my mouth at all so I really think and I think there are extraordinary directors like that I think freezes is another one very underrated we have you know because everybody goes on about lots of other people but he is an extraordinary director some of the work I saw grifters again don't you hear the overseen grifters what a film oh my god all right I have a final question but we'll do one or two more how about right here hi daddy just what you were saying there about style and your relationship into it is being invisible what do you like on set with the camera in terms of how close I to the camera when you're shooting are you is there like a video village and also with actors are you kind of right there with them or do you give them distance no I I try and encourage everyone and then but I believe they are the experts actors and cinematographer they are the experts and I kind of pommel them with ideas and kind of like do we try this do we try that but I want them to then take control of it really and and hopefully they're infected by the mass kind of siege mentality but but but they then bring their expertise to it and that's certainly true of actors you know if I was acting out every part it'd be terrible you know so you but you you express what you feel about the scene or the part or the character all about that on that that particular actor's own gifts or whatever I try to run a a ship of extreme positivism right the way through I I don't really it's very rare for me to kind of go really hard negative try and be very very positive to everybody involved because we're you're in as you all know when you get to make your film he's lost interest now he's on his phone as you know when you get to when you get to make your film you're in a very privileged position you know even if it's a struggle you're in a really privileged position what if it's not working well you'll find that out later you find out later you find it out later this is so we made we made shallow grave and then we made transport in which we're both in their own terms big heads we it for for I was shocked to read that shallow grave was the biggest British film the year it came out at the box office was it I think the [BLANK_AUDIO] It probably wasn't a lot of compensation. - Maybe not, but anyway. - But go with it. - And then we made Lifeless Ordinary, which was a massive flop, an absolute flop. We were like, lost tons of money, all this kind of stuff, 'cause it just didn't work. Although I have to say, no, I'll say that in a minute. Anyway, it didn't work. But what happens when you do that is that you get this reassurance that if you make a huge hit, there's always one territory where it doesn't work around the world. And conversely, and this is the thing that give you the hope, is that if you have a huge flop, there's always one territory where it does work. - Usually France. - Lifeless Ordinary was number one in Belgium for three weeks. (laughing) And I've just come back from Belgium, GENT, and I told that story for them, because it's the first time I've ever been able to do it to a Belgian audience. - You're saying them? - Yeah, I did. And they were delighted, and there was a guy outside, and amongst the autographs, there was a guy outside with a laser disk of lifeless ordinary, which is a kind of light, and I signed it. I said, I'll sign it lots of times. - Wow. - Anyway. - Amazing. - Yeah. - All right, one more question, right here. It's a good question. What emotion is difficult to capture in film? - I mean, the most difficult thing to do. And this is why actors, you often hear their stories about them being, I mean, tricky methods and things like that. Is you're looking for a purity, that it's such a technical exercise, creating it, creating reality, a version of a reality for you to believe. But keeping that purity, that simplicity, of you just asking that question then, is so difficult, 'cause if you have to do that a hundred times, and if we have to surround you with all these other people who will be higher, they'll be distracting, or whatever, it's gonna complicate it. And I made this film millions, and there's a kid in it called, and he's called Alex Etl. He's a grown up, no, he's like six foot five, no, but he was this big. And it's the purest thing I've ever seen. And you realize as a director, keep your stylish finger marks off him, because you will ruin it, you'll spoil it, you'll people will see your thumbprint on him, telling him to do it a certain way. And sometimes you come across those actors who were like that, that still maintain that. That's what I think they're trying to maintain, is what he had just magically, and he would just do it once, and then he would, I'd ask him to do it again, and 'cause you have to, 'cause we have to do it again, for nothing to do with him, and he'd say, why? 'Cause you just said it was great, 'cause I'm an optimist, and I congratulate everyone on the take, but that purity is the most difficult thing to do, I think. That's what you're always after, if you can get it. I mean, great actors, I think, can do pretty much, I've been very lucky to work with some amazing actors, who sort of can do anything, and a lot of them, you think it's a shame they could do so much more, but the parts aren't there for them, for them to show their range or their depth, but the purity is the simplest thing, I think. - All right, last question from me. And you've not dodged, but you've danced around this a little bit, and I want to really press you on this. Given the subject matter of your movie, do you think that Rupert Murdoch has been good or bad for media on the whole? - It's very interesting, because the, you may not know that the sun newspaper was such a success, that it became a cash cow, a literal, it's almost impossible for us to imagine, the amount of money it was making each day. It is extraordinary Fleet Street, the machines, they printed millions of papers every night, and by papers, you're not just talking a paper, you're talking 48 pages or more, and these are printing millions of these copies every night, in a short window, because they then have to be transported around the country. But they were making so much money that he, that's the money that he used to finance, the purchase of 20th Century Fox, and then the establishment of Fox News, and to set up a new terrestrial channel in America requires staggering amounts of money. - Almost went bankrupt. - And that spot the sun did. That's what the sun did, and. - So was that good or bad? - A lot of people in our research spoke very highly of them, about that actually, that many people think, including an ex-editor of the Guardian, felt that in some ways, he saved the printing media. But my own personal opinion about that, you'd have to canvas me after the movie, everyone, because I know everybody I wasn't seeing it, because I don't wanna kind of prejudice your approach to it, really, I prefer you to see it. - So you don't have an opinion? - I don't have an answer for this particular circumstance, no. - Okay, I don't know what I think, to be honest, I don't know what I think about Rupert, either. Obviously, there have been a lot of consequences of the media that he has put into the world, but he's done a lot of good things too, including releasing Slumdog Millionaire, and putting the Simpsons on, and things like that. So it's a complicated answer, I think. All right, Danny Boyle, everyone. (upbeat music)