Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle (born October 20, 1956, Manchester, England) is a British director and screenwriter whose films are known for their bold visual imagery and exuberant energy.
Boyle began his career in the theatre, serving as the artistic director (1982–85) at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs and as deputy director (1985–87) at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1987 he made his directorial debut with the television movie Scout. He directed various other television projects before helming his first feature film, Shallow Grave (1994). The crime thriller—written by John Hodge, who became a frequent collaborator—was noted for its energetic visual style, which became a trademark of Boyle’s work. In 1996 the director scored his big breakthrough with Trainspotting. The darkly humorous look at heroin addicts, written by Hodge and featuring Shallow Grave star Ewan McGregor, became an international hit and one of the United Kingdom’s highest-grossing films. MacGregor reteamed with Boyle on the romantic comedy A Life Less Ordinary (1997), but it failed to match the success of their previous efforts.
Boyle next directed his first big-budget Hollywood film, The Beach (2000), which featured a screenplay by Hodge based on Alex Garland’s popular novel about a seemingly utopian community on a remote Thai island. Despite starring Leonardo DiCaprio, it earned mixed reviews and failed to find an audience. In 2002 Boyle had a sleeper hit with the postapocalyptic zombie film 28 Days Later. He continued to show his versatility with Millions (2004), a heartwarming story about a motherless boy who finds the proceeds of a bank robbery.
After directing the science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007), Boyle helmed Slumdog Millionaire (2008), an unconventional romance set in India and starring Dev Patel. Despite early doubts about the film—many questioned whether audiences would see a movie that contained scenes of extreme child abuse and torture and that featured extensive dialogue in Hindi with English subtitles—it was a huge critical and commercial success. Boyle received an Academy Award for best director, and Slumdog Millionaire won seven other Oscars, including one for best picture.
Boyle continued to earn acclaim with his next film, 127 Hours (2010), which he cowrote with Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy. The drama, which was based on a true story, centers on a hiker’s struggle to survive after his arm becomes trapped by a fallen boulder. 127 Hours received six Academy Award nominations, including one for best adapted screenplay. Trance, a stylized shape-shifting thriller in which an art thief undergoes hypnosis to help him recover a misplaced painting, followed in 2013. Steve Jobs (2015) chronicles the career of the titular Apple cofounder by way of the backstage happenings at three major Apple product releases. Boyle then directed T2 Trainspotting (2017), the long-anticipated sequel to the original. The drama, which was also penned by Hodge and again features MacGregor in the role of Renton, checks in on the Scottish friends 20 years later as they reckon with the consequences of their misspent youth. In 2018 Boyle helmed several episodes of the anthology TV series Trust, about the family of oil baron J. Paul Getty. Boyle returned to movies with Yesterday (2019), a comedy that imagines an alternate universe where the Beatles never existed.
Boyle returned to stage work in 2011 with an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) at the Royal National Theatre. The production featured actors Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch alternating in the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Monster each night. As artistic director of the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Boyle devised an extravagant spectacle that paid tribute to Great Britain’s social and cultural history.