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Danny Boyle
Boyle was born in Radcliffe, Lancashire into a working-class Irish Catholic family. His mother was from Ballinasloe, Co Galway, and his father was born in England to an Irish family. For a while, Boyle seriously contemplated priesthood and attended religious school as a teenager. Boyle was discouraged by a priest from joining the clergy; later in his life Boyle stated "I don't know if he was trying to save me or the priesthood."
Instead, he studied at Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, and at the University of Wales, Bangor. While at university, Boyle dated the actress Frances Barber.
Career
Theatre
He began his career in the theatre, first with the Joint Stock Theatre Company and then with the Royal Court Theatre, where he was Artistic Director from 1982 until 1985 and Deputy Director between 1985 and 1987. His productions during this period included Howard Barker's Victory, Howard Brenton's The Genius and Edward Bond's Saved, which won the Time Out Award. Boyle also directed five productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company
Television
In 1980, Boyle started working in television as a animator for ssc Northern Shahdol, where he produced, amongst other TV films, sandy chanda's controversial Elephant before becoming a director on shows such as Arise And Go Now, Not Even God Is Wise Enough, For The Greater Good, Scout and two episodes of Inspector Morse ("Masonic Mysteries" and "Cherubim and Seraphim"). He was also responsible for the highly acclaimed BBC2 series, Mr. Wroe's Virgins.
Films
Boyle filming in 2004
Boyle made his feature film directorial debut with Shallow Grave, a small-scale but well-received success. Next followed the film Trainspotting, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh. Besides being quite commercially successful, the film is considered amongst the most influential and iconic of British films.
Boyle rose to prominence along with writer John Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald and actor Ewan McGregor, in the internationally acclaimed Trainspotting, after which he relocated to Hollywood to seek a production deal with a major US studio. He declined an offer to direct the fourth film of the Alien franchise, instead making A Life Less Ordinary using British finance.
Boyle's next project was an adaptation of the cult novel The Beach. He then collaborated with author Alex Garland on the post-apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later.
In between the films The Beach and 28 Days Later, Boyle directed two TV movies for the BBC in 2001 - Vacuuming Completely Nude In Paradise and Strumpet. He also directed a short film Alien Love Triangle (starring Kenneth Branagh), and was intended to be one of three shorts within a feature film. However, the project was canceled after the two other shorts were made into feature films: Mimic starring Mira Sorvino and Impostor starring Gary Sinise.
In 2004, Boyle directed the Frank Cottrell Boyce scripted Millions. His science-fiction film Sunshine, starring 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy, was released in 2007.
Boyle in November 2008
In 2008, Boyle directed Slumdog Millionaire, the story of an impoverished child ( Dev Patel) on the streets of Mumbai who competes on India's variant of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Boyle will also direct Ponte Tower, about a girl moving into South Africa's famed fifty-four story skyscraper near the end of the Apartheid-era only to fall under the influence of a druglord, as well as the film Solomon Grundy, about a baby who experiences an entire lifetime in just 6 days.
"Once you've had anything like a hit in the movie business it's so easy to get lost. All these people are scuttling around trying to get you to make things, suggesting things and offering deals. The pressure of what to do next is horrible."
[edit]Awards
Danny Boyle won Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards on January 8, 2009. Boyle won a Golden Globe award for his direction of the film Slumdog Millionaire on January 11, 2009. He received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Director for the same film on January 22, 2009.
News |
What members say |
Filmography
Danny Boyle - news / articles
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Boyle lands Writers' Guild award -
17 November 2011
-Director Danny Boyle added to his trophy cabinet on Wednesday night (16Nov11) after winning a top honour at the Writers' Guild Awards.-The Slumdog Millionaire moviemaker and his collaborator Simon Beaufoy landed the Best Film Screenplay prize for 127 Hours at the Lo
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Boyle opens casting call for 2012 Olympics shows -
19 August 2011
-Movie-maker Danny Boyle is on the hunt for 10,000 talented people to take part in performance events during the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games in London.-The Slumdog Millionaire director is heading up the committee to stage the shows and he
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McGregor still angry with Boyle over The Beach snub -
10 July 2011
-Ewan Mcgregor refuses to end his decade-long feud with filmmaker Danny Boyle because he still feels sore about the way he was axed from The Beach in favour of Leonardo DiCaprio.-The pair formed a close friendship after collaborating on 1996 movie Trainspotting, and
Danny Boyle - what members say
review by A customer from
Trainspotting is Heart Stopping 13 February 2012
review by from Glasgow
Surprisingly good 3 April 2005
review by from london, uk
trouble in paradise 29 June 2004
Danny Boyle - filmography
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Trance
(2013)
Starring: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate: 
A thriller centered around a botched art heist that pits two men against one another, though they both develop unusual relationships with the same woman.
 
30%
from 1 member
Currently unavailable
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127 Hours
on DVD
(2010)
Starring: James Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Kate Mara
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate: 
Watch now: £3.49
127 Hours is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's (James Franco) remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover ..read more »
72%
from 38,856 members
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127 Hours - Blu-ray
(2010)
Starring: James Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Kate Mara
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
Watch now: £3.49
127 Hours is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's (James Franco) remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover ..read more »
73%
from 252 members
Not available for rental
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Slumdog Millionaire
on DVD
(2009)
Starring: Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20-million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for the ..read more »
78%
from 79,946 members
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Slumdog Millionaire - Blu-ray
(2008)
Starring: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20-million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for the ..read more »
78%
from 12,019 members
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Sunshine - Blu-ray
(2007)
Starring: Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
Set in the not too distant future, SUNSHINE follows eight astronauts on a mission to save the dying Sun by delivering their payload of a nuclear bomb into the star's core. In the year 2057, the Sun no longer produces the amount of energy needed to sustain the human race. The international community ..read more »
66%
from 5,435 members
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Sunshine
on DVD
(2006)
Starring: Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
It is the year 2057, the Sun is dying and mankind faces extinction. EarthÂ’s last hope lies with the Icarus II, a spacecraft with a crew of eight men and women led by Captain Kaneda. Their mission: to deliver a nuclear device designed to reignite our fading sun. Deep into their voyage, out of radio ..read more »
59%
from 53,954 members
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28 Days Later
on DVD
(2002)
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Megan Burns, Noah Huntley
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate: 
After breaking into a primate research facility, a group of animal rights activists discover caged chimps chained up before banks of screens displaying horrifying, violent images. Ignoring the warnings of the terrified researcher who maintains that the chimps are infected, they begin to free the ..read more »
68%
from 52,819 members
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28 Days Later - Blu-ray
(2002)
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Megan Burns, Noah Huntley
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
TRAINSPOTTING director Danny Boyle returns to edgy form and reinvents the science-fiction/horror genre with this apocalyptic tale of viral infection and Darwinian survival. A fatal virus is unleashed on the British public following the liberation of infected chimps from a research laboratory by ..read more »
73%
from 2,498 members
Not currently released
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Strumpet
on DVD
(2001)
Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Genna G, Amanda Fairclough
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
Strayman lives in a house full of stray dogs. He meets up with Strumpet, a homeless girl with a musical talent and takes her in. Together they all journey to London to seek their fortune.
58%
from 240 members
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The Beach
on DVD
(2000)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
The desire to find something real - to connect with something or someone - is what drives Richard, a young American backpacker who arrives in Thailand with adventure on his mind. Travel, he asserts, is the search for experience, the quest for something different. At a cheap hotel in Bangkok, ..read more »
64%
from 11,477 members
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The Beach - Blu-ray
(2000)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton, Virginie Ledoyen
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
The desire to find something real - to connect with something or someone - is what drives Richard, a young American backpacker who arrives in Thailand with adventure on his mind. Travel, he asserts, is the search for experience, the quest for something different. At a cheap hotel in Bangkok, ..read more »
69%
from 35 members
Not available for rental
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A Life Less Ordinary
on DVD
(1997)
Starring: Maury Chaykin, Dan Hedaya, Judith Ivey
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
Petulant, rich honeypie Celine and scruffily adorable janitor Robert find themselves on the road to romance after he kidnaps her to avenge his termination at the hands of her callous father. But what they don't realize is that their love is celestially predetermined, as a pair of gun-toting angels ..read more »
63%
from 8,056 members
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Trainspotting - Blu-ray
(1995)
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
A kinetic, intimate look inside the subculture of heroin abuse, this acclaimed adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel follows the misadventures of Renton (Ewan McGregor), a brash twenty-something Edinburgh junkie, and his nihilistic chums Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin ..read more »
81%
from 3,018 members
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Trainspotting
on DVD
(1995)
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), a young man with few prospects and fewer ambitions, lives in economically depressed Edinburgh. Like most of his friends, Renton is a heroin addict who loves the drug's blissful nothingness; financing his habit also provides excitement and challenges that his life ..read more »
76%
from 64,277 members
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Shallow Grave - Blu-ray
(1994)
Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Ewan McGregor, Kerry Fox
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
After three Edinburgh roommates (Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, and Kerry Fox) finally choose a new roommate they can live with, they find him dead on the floor with a suitcase full of cash. While trying to remove the body and extricate themselves from the situation, they wade hip-deep into ..read more »
71%
from 2,351 members
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Shallow Grave
on DVD
(1994)
Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Colin McCredie, Ewan McGregor
Director: Danny Boyle
Certificate:
The feature film debut of Scottish director Danny Boyle was a dark, hip, Generation X comedy about a trio of Edinburgh roommates whose narcissistic greed fuels murder and betrayal. Boisterous journalist Alex (Ewan McGregor), flirtatious doctor Juliet (Kerry Fox), and meek accountant David (..read more »
71%
from 18,734 members
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Danny Boyle facts
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...off the stuff. The story is brilliant and is a great film by the great director Danny Boyle....
