0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains some strong language and some violent scenes.
0:00:06 > 0:00:08Choose life. Choose a job.
0:00:08 > 0:00:10Choose a career.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13Choose to make fresh, bold films.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16Choose to take on the Olympic opening ceremony.
0:00:18 > 0:00:19If you haven't guessed yet,
0:00:19 > 0:00:21I'm talking about director Danny Boyle,
0:00:21 > 0:00:25our very own Oscar-winning maverick, all-round cultural champion
0:00:25 > 0:00:29and as of last summer, self-effacing national treasure.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32# Lust for life... #
0:00:32 > 0:00:35I caught up with Danny to discuss his new film, Trance,
0:00:35 > 0:00:38London 2012's afterglow
0:00:38 > 0:00:41and the highs and lows of a remarkable film-making career.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43# Got a lust for life
0:00:43 > 0:00:47# Yeah, lust for life... #
0:00:47 > 0:00:50Danny, welcome to The Culture Show. At the end of the screening of Trance,
0:00:50 > 0:00:54I was very theatrically handed a signed letter from you that said,
0:00:54 > 0:00:58"Now that you've seen the film, do not reveal its secrets."
0:00:58 > 0:01:02So, I'm going to throw this to you to say, what can you tell us about Trance?
0:01:02 > 0:01:05What I can tell you about it is that it appears to be
0:01:05 > 0:01:07about the theft of a painting...
0:01:07 > 0:01:09Stop right there.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13..which appears to involve James McAvoy, even though
0:01:13 > 0:01:16he's actually one of the junior auctioneers at the house
0:01:16 > 0:01:18that the painting is stolen from.
0:01:24 > 0:01:28- Where is it?- I can't remember. I got hit on the head.
0:01:30 > 0:01:32THAT you remember.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36Vincent Cassel and the gang, who, again, appear to be responsible for this theft
0:01:36 > 0:01:38get involved with a hypnotist from Harley Street,
0:01:38 > 0:01:40played by Rosario Dawson...
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Have you ever been hypnotised before?
0:01:43 > 0:01:45Whatever's in his head, she can find.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49..and they set about using hypnotism
0:01:49 > 0:01:52to try and recover the painting from the convoluted memories
0:01:52 > 0:01:55or the amnesia that James McAvoy appears to be suffering
0:01:55 > 0:01:58as a result of the heist that goes wrong.
0:01:58 > 0:02:02Actually, what's really been stolen are some memories.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04There's something hidden...
0:02:04 > 0:02:05inside me.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08What is it?
0:02:08 > 0:02:10It's a memory.
0:02:10 > 0:02:11A memory?
0:02:11 > 0:02:14A memory of what you did.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16From the first trance of the movie,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19things are shifting and you don't know what's going to happen.
0:02:19 > 0:02:21And, actually, it's pretty scary,
0:02:21 > 0:02:24because you know that you can be tricked at any point.
0:02:24 > 0:02:29And that puts you in a very strange position as an audience, I think.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31I'm at Frank's house.
0:02:31 > 0:02:33Jesus! What are you doing there?
0:02:33 > 0:02:36- Elizabeth, they are going to kill me.- 'No.'- No, they are.
0:02:36 > 0:02:38You were right - this is what they always planned to do.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42'Don't you see? This...this is why I had to hide the painting.'
0:02:42 > 0:02:43You're going, "Wait, what?"
0:02:43 > 0:02:45You kind of want to look back at certain points,
0:02:45 > 0:02:47and you'll get to the end and go...
0:02:47 > 0:02:49SHE GASPS You'll want to watch it again.
0:02:49 > 0:02:51That was the same feeling I was getting just in reading the script.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54I remember reading and going, "Wait...
0:02:54 > 0:02:57"It just went on detour all the way over here. Where did that come from?"
0:03:00 > 0:03:01- 'Do you see the bedside table?'- Yes.
0:03:01 > 0:03:03'Open the drawer.'
0:03:04 > 0:03:06'No, the lower one.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11- 'Is there a gun?'- Yes.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13- Do you think you can use it? - 'I don't know.'
0:03:13 > 0:03:15I've never used one before.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18One of the ideas of the film was to try and...
0:03:18 > 0:03:23is to treat a cinema audience as trance-ees, if you like.
0:03:23 > 0:03:24There is something...
0:03:24 > 0:03:28And I've always used to describe films as... You know, you want them,
0:03:28 > 0:03:32ideally, to mesmerise an audience, and, indeed, the source of that word
0:03:32 > 0:03:37is Mesmer, who was the French architect of hypnotism originally.
0:03:37 > 0:03:40So... And you want to involve the audience in that puzzle, really.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43She put that there. It's not real.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47He was quite open about not really having all the answers
0:03:47 > 0:03:51to the questions that are posed in the script at times,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54but that we would find them as we went, and that, in fact,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57we were going to find more questions to ask as we went,
0:03:57 > 0:03:58and we should embrace that,
0:03:58 > 0:04:02in that the questions are just as important as the answers sometimes.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05And I found that quite thrilling, because in this industry,
0:04:05 > 0:04:09where everybody wants to know what the equation is, you know,
0:04:09 > 0:04:12for success, which is impossible...
0:04:12 > 0:04:13Two and two equals four.
0:04:13 > 0:04:18It doesn't in art, necessarily. And he understands that.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22And he goes, "Let's just find out if there's a more interesting way
0:04:22 > 0:04:23"to get to the answer."
0:04:23 > 0:04:27So, maybe it isn't two and two. Maybe it's two plus pink.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32This film has a resemblance to Memento, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, Inception,
0:04:32 > 0:04:34those kind of mind films.
0:04:34 > 0:04:37The mind is the scene of the crime.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40But also, it's the classic set-up, two guys and a girl
0:04:40 > 0:04:42within a bubble, and a bubble of their own making.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44- What can you make him do?- Anything.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48The film darkens, of course, as it goes on.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51I've been beaten up in loads of movies, abused in loads of movies,
0:04:51 > 0:04:54I've been tortured in movies, I've died in tons of movies.
0:04:54 > 0:04:57But it's never been as unpleasant as it was in this. I think it's Danny.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00I think it was Danny making me feel bad about myself.
0:05:00 > 0:05:05Just, like, making me feel pained and strained and stressed
0:05:05 > 0:05:07and confused and stuff like that.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09Maybe he did it on purpose, I don't know.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12James feels like a very trustworthy kind of person.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15And obviously, one of the delights of the film is within the bubble
0:05:15 > 0:05:18that the three of them exist in, it begins to shift who's the protagonist
0:05:18 > 0:05:23and who's the antagonist, and your allegiances do change, do vary,
0:05:23 > 0:05:27and you might expect Vincent Cassel, who's so good at gangsters,
0:05:27 > 0:05:28to be an out-and-out gangster,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31but he shows a different side to himself eventually as well.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34Even though he's a very visual director, you know,
0:05:34 > 0:05:37one would think very technical, you know, in the way he shoots,
0:05:37 > 0:05:41it's very sophisticated, very different angles,
0:05:41 > 0:05:43reflections and stuff like that...
0:05:44 > 0:05:46..one would think that, you know,
0:05:46 > 0:05:49those kind of directors don't really care about actors.
0:05:49 > 0:05:50And it's not the case at all, actually.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52What I've learned working with Danny is that
0:05:52 > 0:05:55he comes from the theatre world,
0:05:55 > 0:05:58and he actually loves actors, and he spent quite a lot of time with them.
0:05:58 > 0:06:03He has a very precise eye and look on what you do as an actor.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06It's pretty rare, actually, to see those directors...
0:06:06 > 0:06:09a director that is as complete on both sides -
0:06:09 > 0:06:12technical and organic.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18While shooting Trance, Danny's multifarious talents
0:06:18 > 0:06:22were also busy orchestrating London 2012's grand opening.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24As artistic director,
0:06:24 > 0:06:27he delivered an ingeniously left-field celebration of Britain
0:06:27 > 0:06:30that captivated viewers worldwide.
0:06:30 > 0:06:31Entitled Isles Of Wonder,
0:06:31 > 0:06:34even the most cynical of us Brits were transfixed.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42Tell me now what significance it has for you.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45Is it, as everyone wants to imagine, the proudest moment of your life?
0:06:45 > 0:06:49- Where does it sit for you now?- The Olympics could have been a disaster.
0:06:49 > 0:06:53- OK.- Quite easily. In fact, a lot of people were expecting it to be a disaster.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56Our philosophy on it, actually, was very simple.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59We thought if we get enough good people doing this work,
0:06:59 > 0:07:01it might not be shite.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03That was the limit of our ambitions at the time
0:07:03 > 0:07:06because everybody was so certain that it would be shite.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12We had a really, really strong sense of him not being afraid.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14You know,
0:07:14 > 0:07:17I kept saying, like, there's no second night, so doesn't matter.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21A lot of people think all kinds of shite is good,
0:07:21 > 0:07:25so even if it's shite, 50% of people might think it's good, you know?
0:07:25 > 0:07:27So, we just were fearless about it, really.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35Danny rightly felt confident accepting the role of artistic director
0:07:35 > 0:07:37when first approached in June 2010.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43When they offered it to me, I thought, yeah, I'm quite qualified for that. I live in the area,
0:07:43 > 0:07:47I'm a sports fanatic and I have enough authority,
0:07:47 > 0:07:51thanks to the films, to be able to force through what we wanted to do
0:07:51 > 0:07:54with it, our kind of vision of it.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56Danny's approach is always pretty much the same.
0:07:56 > 0:08:02It's always, like, how do we make this story, this event, visceral?
0:08:02 > 0:08:05How does it get you here in your gut?
0:08:05 > 0:08:08And so, for instance, the first few minutes,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11you have to deliver an image of the Olympic Games.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Now, like, in Beijing or in Seoul, or wherever,
0:08:14 > 0:08:17the question would be, how do we make that extravagant,
0:08:17 > 0:08:20how do we make it impressive, how do we show that we're a superpower?
0:08:20 > 0:08:24And Danny's thing was, how do you make five rings visceral?
0:08:24 > 0:08:27And that's how we kind of ended up with the Industrial Revolution,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30because, like, what's the most amazing way of doing that?
0:08:30 > 0:08:34It's to make them and to see the sweat of people's brows
0:08:34 > 0:08:37and the liquid metal being forged in front of you.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45Danny had started work,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48so Underworld came to the opening ceremony
0:08:48 > 0:08:51with certain ideas in place.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54What was lovely
0:08:54 > 0:08:58was to see the way that...
0:08:58 > 0:09:02that music and thoughts on music and the beginnings of experiments
0:09:02 > 0:09:06and suggestions started to glue ideas together.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11# People try to put us d-down
0:09:11 > 0:09:14# Talking 'bout my generation... #
0:09:14 > 0:09:17The opening ceremony is...
0:09:17 > 0:09:18It's not a musical,
0:09:18 > 0:09:23but, actually, you know, it is driven by music relentlessly.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31# We're so pretty Oh, so pretty
0:09:32 > 0:09:34# We're vacant... #
0:09:34 > 0:09:37Music means so much to Danny.
0:09:37 > 0:09:43He listens to music, plays music, explores, and his friends feed him,
0:09:43 > 0:09:48and he feeds them, with new music and ideas all the time.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51It's part of the fabric of him living his life, you know, music.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56Some people think I'm bonkers But I just think I'm free
0:09:56 > 0:09:59Man, I'm just living my life There's nothing crazy 'bout me...
0:09:59 > 0:10:02At the beginning of talking about the Olympics thing, he said,
0:10:02 > 0:10:04we can't possibly compete with Beijing,
0:10:04 > 0:10:05you have to change the game.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07And you can only... If you're changing the game,
0:10:07 > 0:10:09people have to know you've changed the game.
0:10:18 > 0:10:20So we kind of went through like, what haven't,
0:10:20 > 0:10:22what have we got that they didn't have?
0:10:22 > 0:10:26I can remember this, the very first day, he had such a clear idea.
0:10:26 > 0:10:31We had humour, and emotion, and eccentricity, and unpredictability.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:10:43 > 0:10:46And these are all the opposite of what they had in Beijing.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48Please welcome Mike Oldfield
0:10:48 > 0:10:53and the staff of the United Kingdom National Health Service.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55And our very special guests this evening,
0:10:55 > 0:10:59patients and staff of Great Ormond Street Hospital.
0:10:59 > 0:11:02The great thing was the celebration of the National Health Service.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04Both my parents worked in the National Health Service
0:11:04 > 0:11:07and you see that and you just think, home run for the team.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13When you get that kind of job where you're asked to look at ourselves,
0:11:13 > 0:11:16there are certain institutions that reflect that.
0:11:16 > 0:11:19And they weren't institutions that people thought we might concentrate on.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22They are things like national broadcasting,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25which we weren't able to feature as much as we would have liked,
0:11:25 > 0:11:28because the BBC were covering it so it would have looked terrible.
0:11:28 > 0:11:29But the NHS is another one.
0:11:32 > 0:11:37The NHS got in there because you wanted to make it emotional.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42And actually, in modern Britain, you are born and you die in the NHS.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46They are two massive emotions, birth and death.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48And it's the NHS is the way
0:11:48 > 0:11:51this country embraces you at those critical moments.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56The people who played the volunteers' roles in that
0:11:56 > 0:11:59were people from the National Health Service
0:11:59 > 0:12:00and they were working shift work,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03under incredible strain from their managers,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06pissed off about the amount of time they were taking off
0:12:06 > 0:12:08to be at the Olympics and do these kinds of things.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13That makes you go, "Yeah, I'm worried about how hard I'm working.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15"These people are working much, much harder."
0:12:15 > 0:12:17It's kind of mutually inspiring,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20so we kind of built that atmosphere, really.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22To be honest, they had that anyway.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25You would have had to be a bit of a...
0:12:25 > 0:12:27You would have had to be a bit of a twat, really, to negate it.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30MUSIC: "In Dulci Jubilo" by Mike Oldfield
0:12:35 > 0:12:37With live performance, when things go wrong,
0:12:37 > 0:12:39when things are edgy,
0:12:39 > 0:12:41when you're not quite sure how it's going to go,
0:12:41 > 0:12:46their energy comes across and translates and draws people in.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48Danny understands that.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51MUSIC: "Firestarter" by The Prodigy
0:12:56 > 0:13:03He constantly kept everyone in this state of nearly there,
0:13:03 > 0:13:05nearly at the top of the hill.
0:13:11 > 0:13:16It took a lot of courage to do that, you know? An event of that scale.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18It's nerve-racking stuff, you know.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21MUSIC: "Heaven" by Emeli Sande
0:13:28 > 0:13:31And it was just absolutely amazing. Amazing!
0:13:31 > 0:13:33I barely saw Danny on the night.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36Danny was in the control room, like this.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39And afterwards people thought there was going to be an amazing party,
0:13:39 > 0:13:41and definitely my wife and daughter were like,
0:13:41 > 0:13:42there's going to be an amazing party.
0:13:42 > 0:13:44But of course, they'd been up for four nights.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50We were all battered, you know?
0:13:50 > 0:13:52I'm not quite sure what planet I was on.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56There's this sense on the day of, there's nothing you can do now.
0:13:57 > 0:14:02I was nervous, I was edgy. I'm not sure what Danny's frame of mind was.
0:14:02 > 0:14:06He seemed to be...so calm.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09All the time. In the face of
0:14:09 > 0:14:14a tsunami of detail and issues.
0:14:16 > 0:14:19One of the biggest surprises on the night was the Queen's
0:14:19 > 0:14:21pre-recorded cameo alongside 007.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23Good evening, Mr Bond.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26Good evening, Your Majesty.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31But Danny recently declined a knighthood
0:14:31 > 0:14:33for his Olympic extravaganza.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37Why did you turn down the honour they offered you?
0:14:37 > 0:14:40Again, it was... It was...
0:14:40 > 0:14:43I'm not... I didn't wish to get anything out of it.
0:14:43 > 0:14:48I was very proud to do it as part of a huge group of people, really,
0:14:48 > 0:14:50and I don't really see why...
0:14:50 > 0:14:54I didn't really want to be singled out from that, other than that.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57It's kind of preserved, in a way that it should be. And that's it, really.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00And it's a lovely thing.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04I get embarrassed when people say "Mr Boyle", so you feel like...
0:15:04 > 0:15:07Sir Danny would have been funny, though.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10More and more people say "Mr Boyle" and it's like, that's enough to deal with, to be honest.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13I'm just not that kind of person, really.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16The inspiration for his Olympic vision
0:15:16 > 0:15:20and the honours-list sidestep can be traced back to his childhood.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Born in 1956 in Radcliffe, Lancashire,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26he grew up in a working-class Irish Catholic family
0:15:26 > 0:15:28that was staunchly left wing.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31Actually, going right back to your earliest years,
0:15:31 > 0:15:35it seems to me that your upbringing gave you a sense of responsibility.
0:15:35 > 0:15:38You had certain political awarenesses
0:15:38 > 0:15:39that you got from your parents.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43Yeah, I think your values, some of your values, you inherit
0:15:43 > 0:15:45from your parents and your family.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48I was very much influenced by my mum who wanted me to...
0:15:49 > 0:15:51would have loved me to be a priest.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54She had such a respect for the priesthood.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56I was prepared to go to a seminary.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00A priest, actually, at the grammar school I was at, talked me out of it.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04He said, "I think you're probably not cut out for that. You should wait and see."
0:16:04 > 0:16:06Then this other teacher called Mr Unsworth,
0:16:06 > 0:16:11who was an English teacher, kind of came much more into the foreground,
0:16:11 > 0:16:14as far as I could see, almost simultaneously.
0:16:14 > 0:16:17It developed this interest in literature and then drama.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20We'd do plays at school and I began to relish that,
0:16:20 > 0:16:22and that's when you've found it.
0:16:22 > 0:16:24He said, "I think you should try and do this at college.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27"You should have a go." Cos I didn't know what to do.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30Coming from my background, it was, like, you'd use your school,
0:16:30 > 0:16:34a good education, which is what I got, to get a decent job,
0:16:34 > 0:16:36like a teacher or something like that.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41After university, Danny moved to London,
0:16:41 > 0:16:44where he first made his name in the theatre.
0:16:44 > 0:16:49When I left college, I got a job as an assistant stage manager,
0:16:49 > 0:16:52which is just sweeping up, making tea for the theatre company,
0:16:52 > 0:16:54the Joint Stock Theatre Company,
0:16:54 > 0:16:56which was run by two amazing directors,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58Max Stafford-Clark and Bill Gaskill.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00Danny had great integrity.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05And he had a political conviction that absolutely shone.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08So that I knew he was an outstanding young man
0:17:08 > 0:17:11before I knew that he was a talented director.
0:17:11 > 0:17:15And in fact, the theatre is full of talented and ambitious people,
0:17:15 > 0:17:16of whom Danny was one,
0:17:16 > 0:17:23but his own convictions and belief were what made him stand out.
0:17:24 > 0:17:26Max eventually took over the Royal Court Theatre,
0:17:26 > 0:17:28and he took me there as an assistant director -
0:17:28 > 0:17:31still making the tea, really,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34but basically learning a kind of sensibility, a way of directing.
0:17:34 > 0:17:35Which you have to...
0:17:35 > 0:17:37Eventually you have to find your own way of doing it,
0:17:37 > 0:17:41your own voice, but initially you copy your masters, really.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44Because at least they have a system, or what looks like a system.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49I think the Royal Court gave him a lot in terms both of confidence
0:17:49 > 0:17:51and of finding his voice.
0:17:51 > 0:17:55I think that was something he was always determined to do.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59And asking the right questions always leads to the right answers.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06I eventually directed on both the stages there -
0:18:06 > 0:18:09the Theatre Upstairs, which is a small studio space,
0:18:09 > 0:18:13and the main stage, which is a wonderful, intimate 400-seat theatre,
0:18:13 > 0:18:15a beautiful space to direct in.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18I think Danny probably was hideously ambitious,
0:18:18 > 0:18:22but...he fulfilled...
0:18:22 > 0:18:25I mean, he never took on anything that he couldn't do,
0:18:25 > 0:18:29so I learned quite quickly that if Danny wanted to do something,
0:18:29 > 0:18:33it wasn't a bad idea to let him do it.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36I wanted to, I'll be honest, I wanted to take over the theatre.
0:18:36 > 0:18:41It's a sign of appalling ambition, Macbeth-type ambition straightaway.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44But Max wouldn't give up the day job, so I left
0:18:44 > 0:18:47and I went to something that I'd always wanted to do,
0:18:47 > 0:18:49which is to work on television.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51And I went to the BBC in Northern Ireland, actually,
0:18:51 > 0:18:54and I got a job there as a producer.
0:18:54 > 0:18:59And my first role as a producer was to hire myself as a director,
0:18:59 > 0:19:01so again, that's appalling ambition there, straightaway.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04And I would produce and direct these one-hour films
0:19:04 > 0:19:06for the BBC in Northern Ireland.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09And the one exception to that was, we did this Alan Clarke film
0:19:09 > 0:19:12called Elephant, which is something, a scenario that we,
0:19:12 > 0:19:15it's not really a script, it's a scenario we worked up together.
0:19:15 > 0:19:16And then Alan came,
0:19:16 > 0:19:19he was a director who as you know I admired enormously
0:19:19 > 0:19:21and learned a lot from, and he came over
0:19:21 > 0:19:23and directed this extraordinary piece.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26Which has had a resonance on, amazingly.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28Alan's left us, sadly,
0:19:28 > 0:19:31but the film has influenced many, many other filmmakers.
0:19:31 > 0:19:32You still hear people talking about it.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38Partly based on real events that took place during the Troubles,
0:19:38 > 0:19:41Elephant presented an unflinching look
0:19:41 > 0:19:43at sectarian murder in Northern Ireland.
0:19:43 > 0:19:45GUNSHOT
0:19:47 > 0:19:48GUNSHOTS
0:19:51 > 0:19:55With almost no dialogue, no narrative or music,
0:19:55 > 0:19:57it was a deeply disturbing and highly original film
0:19:57 > 0:20:01that proved controversial when first broadcast in 1989.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05All we saw were the assassins and the victims.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08So many of these tragic murders have occurred,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11men have been shot in front of their wives and children.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14Shopkeepers have been shot in a shop full of customers.
0:20:14 > 0:20:18If you're going to do this, show it as it is,
0:20:18 > 0:20:20not some stylised version of it.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22GUNSHOTS
0:20:25 > 0:20:28We wanted to try and achieve some kind of stylisation
0:20:28 > 0:20:31in the piece to prevent it being a documentary.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35Consequently, people, in order to try and capture this idea
0:20:35 > 0:20:38that these men never seem to be caught running away,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42you never hear that in the way that you do for instance in a bank robbery
0:20:42 > 0:20:45in England, there's always witnesses, you never get that impression.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48And we wanted to create that through a stylisation, really.
0:20:48 > 0:20:50DOG BARKS
0:20:53 > 0:20:57But other viewers did appreciate what the film was trying to achieve.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00I'd like to congratulate you.
0:21:00 > 0:21:01Actually, both you and Mr Clarke,
0:21:01 > 0:21:04on what I thought was a really brilliant programme.
0:21:04 > 0:21:09What most people don't understand is it's the sheer repetition
0:21:09 > 0:21:13that made it so important and made you think.
0:21:14 > 0:21:15ECHOING GUNSHOT
0:21:27 > 0:21:29I was stunned by it.
0:21:29 > 0:21:36I thought it was a very humane contribution that managed,
0:21:36 > 0:21:41of course, without...in a very difficult political context,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46to cross the divide very evenly.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48I thought it was a stunning piece of work.
0:21:48 > 0:21:53And very bold decision-making that led to it.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00Danny's own television breakthrough
0:22:00 > 0:22:03came via a very different subject matter, when he directed
0:22:03 > 0:22:07an acclaimed period drama set in 19th-century Lancashire,
0:22:07 > 0:22:08Mr Wroe's Virgins.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12Look, brothers and sisters in Christ.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15Look at the world around you!
0:22:17 > 0:22:20Our young mothers are wage slaves in the mills,
0:22:20 > 0:22:26while their suckling babes are left drugged and fasting
0:22:26 > 0:22:27from dawn until noon time.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34The series told the story of a charismatic preacher
0:22:34 > 0:22:38who recruits seven chaste women to service his household.
0:22:40 > 0:22:42When we were filming Mr Wroe's Virgins,
0:22:42 > 0:22:44Danny seemed completely in control.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49Just totally un-hesitant in what he was looking for
0:22:49 > 0:22:53and what he was wanting to get, and how to get it.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55- WOMAN WAILS - I can't see anything.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57Oh, yes, here it is.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00Here's the little rascal.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04I mean, Danny is totally obsessed with what makes people tick,
0:23:04 > 0:23:07in an almost perverse way.
0:23:07 > 0:23:09Who is the careless seamstress, hmm?
0:23:10 > 0:23:12And ruthless in that too, I think.
0:23:17 > 0:23:18And manipulative too.
0:23:18 > 0:23:20I mean, that's what good directors are.
0:23:20 > 0:23:22Your needle.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25Mr Wroe's Virgins galvanised Danny's growing reputation
0:23:25 > 0:23:30and he now looked to pursue ambitions beyond TV and theatre.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33I was looking to try and get a film made.
0:23:33 > 0:23:36I couldn't. I developed a number of scripts with people.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39Amy Jenkins, who eventually wrote This Life, we developed a script
0:23:39 > 0:23:43about the Ecstasy generation, but nobody was interested then
0:23:43 > 0:23:45because it was only just beginning.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48Eventually, I got sent this script which was doing the rounds
0:23:48 > 0:23:50and they were looking for a director.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52These couple of young guys, a producer and a writer,
0:23:52 > 0:23:55John Hodge and his producer, Andrew MacDonald.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57They were interviewing directors. I read the script
0:23:57 > 0:24:02and it was quite clearly way out there, beyond anything else I'd read.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04He was desperate to make a feature film,
0:24:04 > 0:24:07absolutely desperate to make a feature film.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10Had probably been passed over on some other interviews,
0:24:10 > 0:24:12or whatever, had missed out.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17And he embraced John's writing, that was the key thing, to us.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20Embraced the writing and embraced the opportunity.
0:24:20 > 0:24:21And then, you know,
0:24:21 > 0:24:24started immediately making everything better.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27He had an ambition for Shallow Grave which was very appealing.
0:24:27 > 0:24:29Ambition both in terms of how it would be done
0:24:29 > 0:24:31and how good a film it could be.
0:24:31 > 0:24:34I went in for the interview and I met them
0:24:34 > 0:24:36and I was very honest, as I've always tried to be.
0:24:36 > 0:24:40I said it was a remarkable script, brilliantly written.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43And I said I thought the ending needed work.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47And the other thing I said was that I thought most of it was stolen from the Coen Brothers.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49John was like...
0:24:49 > 0:24:51John appreciated that honesty
0:24:51 > 0:24:54cos it was influenced by the Coen Brothers, by Blood Simple,
0:24:54 > 0:24:55but it was his own beast as well.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58So that was all great. But...
0:24:59 > 0:25:01You have to remember, I had nothing to compare it with
0:25:01 > 0:25:05in terms of working with any other director, so I didn't think
0:25:05 > 0:25:08there was anything, you know, exceptional going on here.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11But when I look back, I can see we were very lucky.
0:25:11 > 0:25:16We met someone who brought an enormous amount to the film.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20- A saw of some kind. - For sawing through the bone.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24This newly forged trio began work on Shallow Grave,
0:25:24 > 0:25:27a noir-ish thriller shot through with violence, attitude
0:25:27 > 0:25:29and a very dark humour.
0:25:30 > 0:25:33- The room's nice too, don't you think?- Yes.- Spacious, bright,
0:25:33 > 0:25:36well-appointed, all that sort of stuff. All that sort of crap.
0:25:36 > 0:25:37Well, yes.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40Yes. So, tell me, Cameron. Just tell me cos I'd like to know.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42What on earth could make you think
0:25:42 > 0:25:44we'd want to share a flat like this with someone like you?
0:25:44 > 0:25:47I mean, he writes in a way... There's no description.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49There's just dialogue. You can do what you want with the scenario.
0:25:49 > 0:25:51That's up to you.
0:25:51 > 0:25:53I'd like to ask you about your hobbies.
0:25:53 > 0:25:54- Why do you want a room here? - Do you smoke?
0:25:54 > 0:25:57I mean, my view would be, it's not so much
0:25:57 > 0:26:01that I just create the dialogue, I just think it's...
0:26:01 > 0:26:03the way that he approaches...
0:26:03 > 0:26:06just pushing everything as far as it'll go.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10Just getting the most out of every aspect of the production.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12When did anyone last say to you these exact words?
0:26:12 > 0:26:15Danny cast Ewan McGregor in his first major film role,
0:26:15 > 0:26:18starring alongside Christopher Eccleston and Kerry Fox
0:26:18 > 0:26:20as yuppie flatmates on a downward spiral.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26The four of us, me and Ewan and Chris and Danny,
0:26:26 > 0:26:29lived in a flat together for a week.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32And we rehearsed in the flat. We did things together.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37We ate, we went to movies, we tried to form a friendship, you know?
0:26:37 > 0:26:41The three of them were wonderful together. Again, three great parts,
0:26:41 > 0:26:43locked inside their own world, the bubble,
0:26:43 > 0:26:46and how they were going to manipulate each other.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48It's a sick idea, Alex. It's sick.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51Yeah, but don't tell me you're not tempted!
0:26:51 > 0:26:54I particularly enjoyed the scene
0:26:54 > 0:26:58where Ewan and Chris are walking around the DIY store.
0:26:58 > 0:26:59David!
0:27:01 > 0:27:03I've always wondered what these were for.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06Now.
0:27:06 > 0:27:08Oh...this is what we need.
0:27:08 > 0:27:12'I could remember where I was in B&Q when I was thinking about it,'
0:27:12 > 0:27:16and just the way he did it, the way they did it was just great.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19A spade! We need a spade! David, I wish you'd concentrate.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21We need a spade if we're going to dig a pit.
0:27:21 > 0:27:23The editor was in London, he'd go and see stuff.
0:27:23 > 0:27:25I remember him coming back after one weekend and saying,
0:27:25 > 0:27:27it's too boring, it's too boring.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30And we need to cut, we need to get more energy into it.
0:27:30 > 0:27:34So he did that sort of montage of all the tools being prepared.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46'I remember thinking, that's absolutely brilliant. That's what this film needs.'
0:27:46 > 0:27:49It's that classic thing where you have something good
0:27:49 > 0:27:50and the director made it even better.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54I remember thinking, oh, God, this script is so violent
0:27:54 > 0:27:56and just terrible...
0:27:56 > 0:28:01I mean, not terrible as in terrible, just unbelievably...
0:28:01 > 0:28:02vicious.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04SAWING
0:28:08 > 0:28:10Finished!
0:28:10 > 0:28:12Aye, but not quite.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14Is that going to be deep enough?
0:28:14 > 0:28:18- Don't worry about that. - Is this necessary?- Yes!
0:28:18 > 0:28:19Now come on, all or nothing.
0:28:19 > 0:28:22'There's a tendency in film scripts
0:28:22 > 0:28:26'to smooth all the unpleasantness off people, all the rough edges.'
0:28:26 > 0:28:29We didn't want to turn them into...
0:28:29 > 0:28:33saccharine kind of sentimental movie characters.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35You know, at the budget we were making the film for,
0:28:35 > 0:28:37we didn't need to do that.
0:28:37 > 0:28:39It wasn't a Tom Hanks movie.
0:28:41 > 0:28:43Although he would have been quite good, I'm sure.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48Even without Tom Hanks, it was an arresting debut
0:28:48 > 0:28:50that proved British cinema
0:28:50 > 0:28:53could once again be populist, anarchic and violent.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55SHE GRUNTS
0:28:55 > 0:28:58But most importantly, it secured Danny and his team backing
0:28:58 > 0:29:00for a second outing, Trainspotting.
0:29:00 > 0:29:05MUSIC: "Lust For Life" by Iggy Pop
0:29:05 > 0:29:07'Choose life. Choose a job.
0:29:07 > 0:29:11'Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television...'
0:29:11 > 0:29:14An intoxicating adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16Trainspotting vividly brought to life
0:29:16 > 0:29:20the story of a ragtag group of Scottish heroin addicts...
0:29:20 > 0:29:24and became a defining cultural moment for an entire generation.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29Why was it, do you think, that Trainspotting had such an impact
0:29:29 > 0:29:32and that people still now look back at that
0:29:32 > 0:29:34as the touchstone film of that period?
0:29:34 > 0:29:39A lot of it, obviously, all of it, you can blame Irvine Welsh's book.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41It's a wonderful book, still.
0:29:41 > 0:29:46It is Joycean, I think, in its thrall and its ambition.
0:29:46 > 0:29:50I think John knew straightaway... "I can't adapt that.
0:29:50 > 0:29:52"I'll just be inspired by it."
0:29:52 > 0:29:54The fact is, when you've got a book
0:29:54 > 0:29:57which doesn't burden you with a narrative,
0:29:57 > 0:30:03and which is kind of full of great moments
0:30:03 > 0:30:07and great scenes and great characters and great dialogue,
0:30:07 > 0:30:08in a way you can't really lose.
0:30:08 > 0:30:11That film was a joy, everything about it, to make.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14Whereas Shallow Grave had been pretty tough.
0:30:14 > 0:30:16But then we were experts, weren't we?
0:30:16 > 0:30:19It was the commitment to the book, I think, inspired everyone.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26Ewan, like, shaved his head. At the time, he's a young actor,
0:30:26 > 0:30:29he's got this beautiful hair. That's his selling card.
0:30:29 > 0:30:32Period drama, he could slip in and out of. He could look the business.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36He shaved it, he lost all this weight so he looked like a ghost.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41It's shite being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low.
0:30:41 > 0:30:43I think the costumes are timeless.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48You look at it now and they look cool. They still look fine.
0:30:48 > 0:30:50They don't look idiotic like normally you do
0:30:50 > 0:30:53when you look back on a film 15 years later.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56Franco!
0:30:57 > 0:30:59One of the things that Danny loves,
0:30:59 > 0:31:03and incredibly suited that film perhaps more than any other,
0:31:03 > 0:31:07is he loves what he calls "acting on the front foot".
0:31:07 > 0:31:10So you know, you get a lot of that, I guess,
0:31:10 > 0:31:12I don't know the exact term, but sort of method,
0:31:12 > 0:31:14where it's all sort of mumbling.
0:31:14 > 0:31:15He likes it to be delivered.
0:31:15 > 0:31:18He likes it to be delivered more like the theatre,
0:31:18 > 0:31:21I guess that was his training ground.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24So that, what he calls it is "blazing".
0:31:24 > 0:31:25That's one of his great expressions.
0:31:25 > 0:31:27BOTH: What are you two talking about?
0:31:28 > 0:31:31- BOTH:- Football! What are you talking about?
0:31:31 > 0:31:33BOTH: Shopping!
0:31:33 > 0:31:35You talk about the novel as being important,
0:31:35 > 0:31:37but there are three sequences, visual sequences,
0:31:37 > 0:31:40in that film that have entered the lexicon of modern film.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43There's the opening of him running down the street to the sound of Lust For Life.
0:31:43 > 0:31:47There's the scene of him going down the toilet in which you went
0:31:47 > 0:31:50as far as you could before going into an ethereal dream.
0:32:00 > 0:32:02And then, of course, there's the overdose sequence,
0:32:02 > 0:32:06which has become the thing that everyone remembers.
0:32:08 > 0:32:09Talk me through that sequence.
0:32:09 > 0:32:13I think the idea of him sinking into the floor comes from the book.
0:32:13 > 0:32:15That was how he described the feeling of it
0:32:15 > 0:32:17and we thought, why can't we do that?
0:32:19 > 0:32:22MUSIC: "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed
0:32:24 > 0:32:28The book isn't really about nature as realism.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31It's actually about the nature of your imagination, of your mind,
0:32:31 > 0:32:34what happens to you and obviously, the drugs and how they affect that.
0:32:34 > 0:32:37You want to try and represent that and surprise people.
0:32:37 > 0:32:42The other thing was that the drug of choice at the time was Ecstasy
0:32:42 > 0:32:46which was a very, very different sensibility to heroin.
0:32:46 > 0:32:47Although these guys are heroin addicts,
0:32:47 > 0:32:51the film has a sensibility that's a bit more adrenaline-based,
0:32:51 > 0:32:54a bit more Ecstasy-based, if you like, rave-based.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57A little dab of speed. It's just the ticket, man.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00Naw! I went to Craigie, Craignewton.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03I just put down Royal Edinburgh College to help get the job.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05Too much discrimination in this town, man.
0:33:05 > 0:33:08There's also the completely counterintuitive use of Born Slippy
0:33:08 > 0:33:11at the end in a sequence in which somebody is creeping
0:33:11 > 0:33:13out of the flat and then this "dum-dum-dum".
0:33:13 > 0:33:17Once you've read the book, you kind of felt this passage of time.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20It was described through the music they were listening to,
0:33:20 > 0:33:23and you could feel it through Iggy Pop and then The Clash.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26So we felt like we could take a lead from the book
0:33:26 > 0:33:30and if you listen to the music, it basically just updates
0:33:30 > 0:33:33to present day and the present-day song was Born Slippy.
0:33:33 > 0:33:35MUSIC: "Born Slippy" by Underworld
0:33:38 > 0:33:40We heard Danny Boyle, who made Shallow Grave,
0:33:40 > 0:33:44wants to use a couple of pieces in Trainspotting.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47And he showed us 12 or 15 minutes,
0:33:47 > 0:33:50and it was, you can have anything you want!
0:33:50 > 0:33:53You know, anything at all. Do you want something else?
0:33:53 > 0:33:57Do you want us to send you the archive that nobody's heard?
0:33:57 > 0:33:58What do you want?
0:33:58 > 0:34:01He always said, you know, we want to make the film to a rhythm,
0:34:01 > 0:34:03and the rhythm for him was Underworld.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06MUSIC: "Born Slippy" by Underworld
0:34:10 > 0:34:15I felt that he was driven partly by a sort of urge to explore
0:34:15 > 0:34:20kind of what happened when punk sort of faded away,
0:34:20 > 0:34:23and there seemed to have been sort of nothing for a while,
0:34:23 > 0:34:25and then house music came in and Ecstasy culture
0:34:25 > 0:34:29and that sort of was a revival of youthful spirit.
0:34:29 > 0:34:35And I think that's partly the path he was following in Trainspotting.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38You were once criticised early on as making films that looked like
0:34:38 > 0:34:40a collection of three-minute pop videos put together.
0:34:40 > 0:34:45- Your reply was, "Yeah. And?" - Yeah. Because I love that.
0:34:45 > 0:34:46I think that was really attractive.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50I think also, at the time, when that criticism was made,
0:34:50 > 0:34:53MTV was just starting, and I think people,
0:34:53 > 0:34:55and it's in this country particularly,
0:34:55 > 0:34:58we're kind of hostile to things like that sometimes
0:34:58 > 0:35:03cos it feels like it's Americanising or degrading the art or something.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05But I always found it enormously attractive.
0:35:05 > 0:35:09'The truth is that I'm a bad person. But that's going to change.
0:35:09 > 0:35:11'I'm going to change.'
0:35:11 > 0:35:13Trainspotting was part of an explosion
0:35:13 > 0:35:15in British creative confidence,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18with Danny hailed as the new king of cinematic cool.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22Doors to big Hollywood stars and money men would now open,
0:35:22 > 0:35:25but it was always going to prove a hard act to follow.
0:35:27 > 0:35:29After the euphoric success of those two,
0:35:29 > 0:35:35and I don't mean to criticise, but you have Life Less Ordinary,
0:35:35 > 0:35:38which didn't work quite as well as it should have done,
0:35:38 > 0:35:40and then The Beach,
0:35:40 > 0:35:42which you yourself have said was a difficult experience.
0:35:42 > 0:35:48What do you think it was about Life Less Ordinary that was problematic?
0:35:48 > 0:35:53I know exactly what was problematic. It was our arrogance, really. Um...
0:35:53 > 0:35:57John had written a script and it was set in France and Scotland
0:35:57 > 0:36:01and we just decided in our arrogance, "We'll just move that to America.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04"That'll be fine. We'll just do that because it'll be...
0:36:04 > 0:36:07"Then it can be a big hit in America."
0:36:07 > 0:36:09Rolling. Action!
0:36:09 > 0:36:12A Life Less Ordinary saw McGregor appear this time
0:36:12 > 0:36:15as a hapless kidnapper who falls for his own hostage,
0:36:15 > 0:36:18a wealthy ball-breaker played by Cameron Diaz.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21I'm the victim and you are the kidnapper, apparently.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25- Meaning exactly what? - Kidnap For Beginners, chapter one.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29Have you even asked for a ransom yet?
0:36:29 > 0:36:33I think the script was also much more violent.
0:36:33 > 0:36:36And we reduced that again. And it's the way it creeps...
0:36:36 > 0:36:38It kind of softens you. Success...
0:36:38 > 0:36:40You think we can just do that, soften that a bit more,
0:36:40 > 0:36:42we'll have even more success.
0:36:42 > 0:36:46And we can bring that sensibility to so many more people.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49And in fact, the sensibility is what you're sacrificing
0:36:49 > 0:36:50to get it to those people.
0:36:50 > 0:36:56The issue with the film was the understanding of America,
0:36:56 > 0:36:58the understanding of these characters there.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02And the script probably was never, you know, never quite licked.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05It was a bit of culture shock, and I think particularly for Danny
0:37:05 > 0:37:08it was a bit harder to get all these people to do what he wanted,
0:37:08 > 0:37:11which only got worse in years to come.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13But you have to try and keep going, move on.
0:37:13 > 0:37:15You can't make the same film over and over again.
0:37:15 > 0:37:20I think it was that, after Trainspotting, we kind of...
0:37:20 > 0:37:23we just wanted to do something different.
0:37:23 > 0:37:25You know.
0:37:25 > 0:37:27It wasn't what everyone wanted to see.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30And you can see that over and over again in other people's work,
0:37:30 > 0:37:33or in music or anything - it happens all the time.
0:37:33 > 0:37:35They just become mesmerised.
0:37:35 > 0:37:37You know...
0:37:37 > 0:37:40I don't think we would have had any joy
0:37:40 > 0:37:48attempting a third kind of gritty, exuberant British movie.
0:37:48 > 0:37:50Although we would probably have had an easier ride,
0:37:50 > 0:37:54but I don't think it would have been any happier experience for us.
0:37:54 > 0:37:56MUSIC: "Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Darin
0:37:58 > 0:38:02I remember seeing it and thinking, it just looks compromised.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04And that wasn't something that was true
0:38:04 > 0:38:07of Shallow Grave or Trainspotting. They were not compromised.
0:38:07 > 0:38:11I know, and it's something you have to confront
0:38:11 > 0:38:14in your film-making career, if you have a career, if it's ongoing.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18The thing I did love about it is that if you have a big flop,
0:38:18 > 0:38:22which Life Less Ordinary was, there's always a country where it's a success
0:38:22 > 0:38:26and I'm delighted to say it was number one in Belgium for three weeks, so there you go.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29- The all-important Belgian market. - So it's a Belgian sensibility.
0:38:29 > 0:38:33Despite this abortive adventure, Danny's stock still remained high,
0:38:33 > 0:38:37and when the chance arose to cast the megastar of Titanic
0:38:37 > 0:38:41in The Beach, it proved impossible to resist.
0:38:41 > 0:38:44Leonardo DiCaprio was in, Ewan McGregor out,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47a decision that sparked a long-term rift.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51We hadn't learnt from Life Less Ordinary, sufficiently anyway,
0:38:51 > 0:38:55and we still thought the way to make the films was to actually
0:38:55 > 0:38:58get the ingredients that would allow you more resources.
0:38:58 > 0:39:01So we took the script to Leonardo DiCaprio
0:39:01 > 0:39:04and we had hinted to Ewan that it would be his part
0:39:04 > 0:39:07and I think we dealt with that very badly.
0:39:07 > 0:39:08I'm not proud of that at all.
0:39:08 > 0:39:12DiCaprio's involvement ensured a 50-million budget,
0:39:12 > 0:39:15dwarfing Danny's normal resources.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18I shall provide! Yeah!
0:39:18 > 0:39:20But it wasn't an environment in which he thrived.
0:39:20 > 0:39:24From the studio's point of view, they've got the star of Titanic.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27But Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to effectively kill Jack Dawson,
0:39:27 > 0:39:32and move himself on, you know, from that whole persona,
0:39:32 > 0:39:36into a kind of grown-up, edgy filmmaker, and who better to do it
0:39:36 > 0:39:39than the man who made the grown-up, edgy film, Trainspotting?
0:39:39 > 0:39:40Great, so that works.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43But that's not really the vision the studio have got
0:39:43 > 0:39:48for their young, most well-known star on the planet.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52So there is an immediate kind of tension there.
0:39:53 > 0:39:58And the rest of us got kind of buffeted by that.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01I remember Leonardo DiCaprio said, "If you want to do more, Danny,
0:40:01 > 0:40:03"I'll ring up the studio and we can do more."
0:40:03 > 0:40:05Because Danny can always do more.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08Can always work ten more hours, can always do another week.
0:40:08 > 0:40:13And I think even by the end of that, there was no more he wanted to do.
0:40:13 > 0:40:14We were going to go to Thailand
0:40:14 > 0:40:17and we were basically going to take Pinewood to Thailand.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21We were going to take a huge crew to Thailand.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25And we weren't... We didn't think we were being totally colonial,
0:40:25 > 0:40:30because we thought, while we're there, we'll teach the Thai people how to make Pinewood films.
0:40:30 > 0:40:34We'll have Thai crews shadowing our Pinewood crew.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37That's nuts. I mean, you can do that if you want,
0:40:37 > 0:40:41but it is a dying idea, that, as a way of making a film.
0:40:45 > 0:40:47And we came out of it with a film which is serviceable,
0:40:47 > 0:40:50but not inspired, really.
0:40:50 > 0:40:53And the benefit of it for me was that you began to,
0:40:53 > 0:40:55I really began to learn.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02It made 150 or 160 million, it made money
0:41:02 > 0:41:03and that kind of stuff.
0:41:03 > 0:41:05So it wasn't like Life Less Ordinary,
0:41:05 > 0:41:08never made any money and was critically killed.
0:41:08 > 0:41:12This one at least, you know, now we're real Hollywood makers.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15We made money out of a slightly disappointing film.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18The Beach had proved a bruising experience,
0:41:18 > 0:41:22and Danny headed home to rediscover his creative mojo.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25After that, I made a couple of very small television films
0:41:25 > 0:41:28with a different set-up,
0:41:28 > 0:41:31and they were more like what you'd call
0:41:31 > 0:41:33guerrilla film-making, I suppose.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35And I learned that was what I really enjoyed.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37The oil tanker riches,
0:41:37 > 0:41:41which directors like Chris Nolan, Ridley Scott,
0:41:41 > 0:41:45use to extraordinary effect, was not what I was best at inhabiting.
0:41:45 > 0:41:47- So we made a couple of small films. - Vacuuming.
0:41:47 > 0:41:50Vacuuming, Completely Nude in Paradise, and Strumpet,
0:41:50 > 0:41:52which had an amazing performance by Chris Eccleston
0:41:52 > 0:41:53doing a John Cooper Clarke poem
0:41:53 > 0:41:56which is one of my favourite bits of filming ever.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58Out.
0:41:58 > 0:42:02I tell you what I'll do, Tie A Yellow Ribbon!
0:42:02 > 0:42:05One from Cooper Clarke, the people's poet, though he don't know it.
0:42:05 > 0:42:08I feel him sitting beside me on the amp
0:42:08 > 0:42:10The rat-tat-tat-tatting word bullet champ.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14Evidently Chickentown.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16CHEERING
0:42:17 > 0:42:20We made it with Anthony Dod Mantle,
0:42:20 > 0:42:22who was known as one of the Dogme cameramen.
0:42:22 > 0:42:25It fucking gets you fucking down
0:42:25 > 0:42:28Evidently Chickentown!
0:42:28 > 0:42:30CHEERING
0:42:34 > 0:42:38I was beginning to develop a popular trend
0:42:38 > 0:42:42for moving quite fast with small, unusual cameras,
0:42:42 > 0:42:45which has seemed to stay with me a bit. And we got together
0:42:45 > 0:42:48and we did a couple of dramas in the North of England,
0:42:48 > 0:42:50with Danny directing.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53And I saw him in a hilarious situation on Strumpet,
0:42:53 > 0:42:57in this rough housing suburb, one miserable night in Manchester.
0:42:57 > 0:42:59Come on! Come on!
0:42:59 > 0:43:02We had to get Chris Eccleston to loosen up about performing,
0:43:02 > 0:43:05singing on top of this pile of mud in front of all these people who
0:43:05 > 0:43:08were hanging out over the battlements of these housing estates.
0:43:08 > 0:43:12Danny got up there, he started doing this...
0:43:12 > 0:43:13I didn't know him very well.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17# Never has sex on her mobile phone
0:43:17 > 0:43:20# Mam's not there anyway
0:43:20 > 0:43:21# She's on Prozac
0:43:21 > 0:43:25# She's got UK Gold and she's not coming back! #
0:43:25 > 0:43:30There is no limit to where he'll go to get people to feel brave
0:43:30 > 0:43:32and expose what he wants them to expose.
0:43:32 > 0:43:36This new filming style was used to terrifying effect
0:43:36 > 0:43:39in Danny's pulsating horror film, 28 Days Later.
0:43:39 > 0:43:40SCREAMING
0:43:40 > 0:43:42SMASHING
0:43:45 > 0:43:47Starring Cillian Murphy, it was a welcome return
0:43:47 > 0:43:51to pioneering big-screen form for the director.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54When you're doing films with Danny, from project to project,
0:43:54 > 0:43:57as far as I'm concerned, there will be a word.
0:43:57 > 0:44:02And in the case of 28 Days Later, it was "rage".
0:44:04 > 0:44:07I don't know how many times he just shouted, "Rage!"
0:44:09 > 0:44:13"They're coming!" And he'd bloody deafen me with his shout.
0:44:13 > 0:44:16He'd be right near the camera, I'd have forgotten him for a minute,
0:44:16 > 0:44:19just tucking into the camera, and then he'd start going, "Rage!"
0:44:19 > 0:44:22and the whole bloody floor would shake.
0:44:24 > 0:44:26And we made that for, again, a limited amount of money,
0:44:26 > 0:44:29but limitless ambition, and that's the equation, if you can do it.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32And you are surprisingly resourceful when you do that.
0:44:32 > 0:44:36And it seems to me that kind of reinvigorated your film-making,
0:44:36 > 0:44:39after what I imagine must have been a depressing experience,
0:44:39 > 0:44:42- with The Beach, it was like you'd found your feet again.- Yeah,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45it was a very exciting way to work.
0:44:45 > 0:44:48Unpredictable and...
0:44:48 > 0:44:49rough at times.
0:44:49 > 0:44:53But you felt like you were making the film day by day.
0:44:53 > 0:44:58It was our first bigger film. It was sort of vanguard British indie,
0:44:58 > 0:45:04but we were told off by the, you know, the British MI5
0:45:04 > 0:45:06for sort of littering the streets in the morning,
0:45:06 > 0:45:08which wasn't really decorum.
0:45:08 > 0:45:11Danny and I were walking around like schoolboys picking up bog roll
0:45:11 > 0:45:12and saying sorry to armed guards.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15We came up with this sequence at the beginning,
0:45:15 > 0:45:18which was like just a small bit of the script
0:45:18 > 0:45:21but expanded into ten minutes of the opening of the film,
0:45:21 > 0:45:23which is, he wanders round London on his own.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27Which we thought, that's beyond the resources of that kind of film.
0:45:27 > 0:45:29The extraordinary thing about that opening
0:45:29 > 0:45:32is you think, "They must have stopped the traffic for a day."
0:45:32 > 0:45:35Unless you've got mega bucks, you can't really stop the traffic
0:45:35 > 0:45:36on Westminster Bridge.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39The police will let you ask motorists not to cross
0:45:39 > 0:45:42for a couple of minutes, and that's it.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45So we'd surround the bridge with cameras,
0:45:45 > 0:45:47which you just switch on and leave running,
0:45:47 > 0:45:50and he walks across it once, which takes him two minutes.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52- Hello?- Then you let the traffic go.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56But you've got this series of angles which make you feel like it's...
0:45:56 > 0:45:59What's the rush? There's no rush about anything. It's like,
0:45:59 > 0:46:02this is going to take for ever, isn't it? Because there's nobody here...
0:46:02 > 0:46:04Hello!
0:46:04 > 0:46:06And we cut that sequence together
0:46:06 > 0:46:08and you just knew this was going to be good.
0:46:08 > 0:46:12Doing that sequence was one of the best film-making experiences of my life, you know?
0:46:12 > 0:46:15You get up at three in the morning or whatever,
0:46:15 > 0:46:18go and film a sequence just as the sun hit the street,
0:46:18 > 0:46:19and you were finished by eight,
0:46:19 > 0:46:22and you felt you'd achieved something incredible.
0:46:22 > 0:46:24And I think the first hour,
0:46:24 > 0:46:29or 45 minutes, is about as good as it gets from Danny's work.
0:46:35 > 0:46:38You could just tell, it's funny. Sometimes you make a film
0:46:38 > 0:46:42and it's like...there's nothing you can do, you're just labouring away.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45And other times, it's kind of, sort of effortless, really.
0:46:51 > 0:46:53There are also, in your back catalogue,
0:46:53 > 0:46:55the films which I really love,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58but didn't find the audience that perhaps they deserved to.
0:46:58 > 0:47:03One of them is Millions. You were raised as a Catholic.
0:47:03 > 0:47:05I know you're not religious now.
0:47:05 > 0:47:10But that is clearly playing itself out to some extent in that film.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14Yes, I think it is. Millions is written by Frank Cottrell Boyce
0:47:14 > 0:47:17and so it's weird to call it a personal film.
0:47:17 > 0:47:22But actually, we worked so closely together on it and it was very...
0:47:22 > 0:47:24Yeah, very precious,
0:47:24 > 0:47:26because it was very much about our relationships with
0:47:26 > 0:47:30our mothers and also about the role that imagination plays in a kid
0:47:30 > 0:47:32who's not very good with money.
0:47:32 > 0:47:34And his older brother, it's classic,
0:47:34 > 0:47:38his older brother is a money fiend even though he's only ten years old.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50- Where did you get that? - You can see it too, then?
0:47:50 > 0:47:54Like, sometimes you see things, don't you?
0:47:54 > 0:47:56And other people can't see them.
0:47:58 > 0:47:59What?
0:47:59 > 0:48:02I think every single director in the country had turned that down
0:48:02 > 0:48:04by the time it got to Danny. It never went,
0:48:04 > 0:48:06no-one ever thought of giving it to Danny
0:48:06 > 0:48:10because Danny was famous for films about zombies and heroin addicts.
0:48:10 > 0:48:12Because it seemed so unlike him,
0:48:12 > 0:48:15the minute that he sort of jumped on that film,
0:48:15 > 0:48:18and was very committed to it,
0:48:18 > 0:48:23I knew that it meant something, that it was releasing a part of him
0:48:23 > 0:48:25that wasn't normally in his film work.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29- His fingerprints are all over that film.- Hammer it.
0:48:29 > 0:48:30Get great sound on that.
0:48:30 > 0:48:34And the kid's imagination is full of religious iconography.
0:48:34 > 0:48:36He's visited by visions of saints.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Yeah, which is all his life's full of at that time cos his mum
0:48:39 > 0:48:42used to make sure he went to church and all that kind of stuff.
0:48:42 > 0:48:44St Peter, died AD64.
0:48:44 > 0:48:46All right, don't remind us.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48The money. It's robbed.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50I know.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53Patron saint of keys, locks and general security, man!
0:48:53 > 0:48:55Including up there.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58His mind will fill with different imagery as he gets older.
0:48:58 > 0:48:59He's a fledgling artist, if you like.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02He's someone who's going to express himself
0:49:02 > 0:49:06- visually or literarily, however. - Is he you?
0:49:06 > 0:49:10I rather romantically think of myself as that kid. Yeah.
0:49:10 > 0:49:12And he's gorgeous as well, which I never was.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14So it's like typical kind of director casting.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20Go on, go! Go! Go on, go! Go!
0:49:22 > 0:49:26Danny's spiritual preoccupations at this time carried over
0:49:26 > 0:49:30into Sunshine, an ambitious foray into science fiction.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33I remember him saying that the difficult thing with this movie
0:49:33 > 0:49:36is you have to create everything. There's nothing for free.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38And I thought that was really interesting,
0:49:38 > 0:49:41because if you are on a beach, as difficult as it might be
0:49:41 > 0:49:44with some other things, at least you can get a sunset.
0:49:44 > 0:49:46Nothing like that in a space movie. Everything has to be created.
0:49:46 > 0:49:51And they obviously are famously tricky and drive people a bit crazy.
0:49:51 > 0:49:54And I think it was a very, very demanding thing.
0:49:54 > 0:49:59COMPUTER: Boosters will automatically fire after four-minute delay.
0:49:59 > 0:50:01Entering coronal hole in south polar cap.
0:50:01 > 0:50:05Magnetic field structure open. Temperature 37,000.
0:50:05 > 0:50:10What's Sunshine about...really?
0:50:10 > 0:50:13It's the search for what we are - where do we come from?
0:50:13 > 0:50:17The end of the film is completely surreal because Cillian's character,
0:50:17 > 0:50:20Capa, virtually touches the surface of the sun.
0:50:20 > 0:50:25He's able to see something there that we're all searching for, in a way.
0:50:25 > 0:50:29It's got a spirituality to it, which just hovers in there really.
0:50:29 > 0:50:31Are you an atheist or an agnostic?
0:50:31 > 0:50:36I think I'm probably a very, very flexible, malleable atheist really.
0:50:40 > 0:50:43Sweeping the religious hangovers of his youth to one side,
0:50:43 > 0:50:46Danny now turned to a story that in his hands would
0:50:46 > 0:50:50transform into a kaleidoscopic cinematic masterpiece.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57All the lessons that you'd learned during your career seemed to come together in Slumdog.
0:50:57 > 0:51:01Working with children, which obviously you'd done to some extent with Millions,
0:51:01 > 0:51:04recognising a script, the importance of music
0:51:04 > 0:51:07and, of course, Anthony Dod Mantle's cameras
0:51:07 > 0:51:10getting us right at the beginning of the film, right in those streets.
0:51:10 > 0:51:13You'd never seen something as street-level as that before.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16THEY SHOUT AND LAUGH
0:51:16 > 0:51:19We took a crew of about ten of us who made the film there,
0:51:19 > 0:51:23cos it's made by an Indian crew and that was a huge lesson
0:51:23 > 0:51:26in being able to capture some of it faithfully.
0:51:26 > 0:51:28And because we didn't take a huge crew,
0:51:28 > 0:51:30we were able to get closer to it.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35I knew, from the first meeting I had with Danny,
0:51:35 > 0:51:38I was going to be losing a lot of weight
0:51:38 > 0:51:41and it was about developing technology that moved.
0:51:41 > 0:51:43It's about being down there with them
0:51:43 > 0:51:46and seeing what's been thrown back at you as a child.
0:51:50 > 0:51:55All life is there really, just that it's acute... It's so acute.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02And you've just got to spend a lot of time in what they call the slums.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05And people begin to realise that you're not just some arsehole,
0:52:05 > 0:52:08that you're genuinely interested in the way that life is lived there
0:52:08 > 0:52:10and you're going to try and reflect that.
0:52:10 > 0:52:11Hey!
0:52:11 > 0:52:13Danny wasn't overawed by the initial shot,
0:52:13 > 0:52:15which is quite massive in India.
0:52:15 > 0:52:20He was just... He was mesmerised by it and we just enjoyed it together.
0:52:20 > 0:52:22Kids love him.
0:52:22 > 0:52:24There was a language barrier - imagine -
0:52:24 > 0:52:26a massive language barrier for a lot of the kids in India.
0:52:26 > 0:52:29But he got there. Because he's what he is, it's what he radiates.
0:52:31 > 0:52:36The other thing that surprises me is the poster campaign which said "the feel-good film of the..."
0:52:36 > 0:52:38and I thought, "Did you see the same film as me?"
0:52:38 > 0:52:41I love Slumdog Millionaire, but "feel-good" wasn't the word
0:52:41 > 0:52:44that immediately leapt into my mind because you do...
0:52:44 > 0:52:46It's not a romanticised version of those streets.
0:52:46 > 0:52:48Yeah, bits of the film are pretty tough.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53You have to leave the marketing to someone else.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56You say what you think and we said what you think and what we thought.
0:52:56 > 0:53:01Cos I remember the poster that Pathe produced was this white poster
0:53:01 > 0:53:04with "feel-good film!" And Dev was kind of going, "Yeah!"
0:53:04 > 0:53:06A huge smile on his face. I said to them,
0:53:06 > 0:53:11"Listen, I tried to get Dev to smile in the film once and he wouldn't!"
0:53:11 > 0:53:14"Anyway, white is the colour of death in India."
0:53:14 > 0:53:16They said, "It doesn't matter.
0:53:16 > 0:53:20"This is about bus-stops in Leeds on a January night."
0:53:23 > 0:53:27The film had a brutal yet touching love story at its heart, something Danny had avoided
0:53:27 > 0:53:31since the problems of A Life Less Ordinary over a decade before.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34What's your favourite scene in Slumdog Millionaire?
0:53:34 > 0:53:39There's a wonderful sequence at the end where he...
0:53:39 > 0:53:41he crosses the railway station.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45And it's inter-cut with memories, really.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48And you feel this romantic build,
0:53:48 > 0:53:51where you're completing the journey of a lifetime.
0:53:51 > 0:53:53That was pretty special, really.
0:53:56 > 0:53:59I remember outrageously selling the film
0:53:59 > 0:54:01as a mixture of Trainspotting and Amelie.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04And then you arrive at the end and it is a fairy story.
0:54:04 > 0:54:08And it is Amelie, in a way. And it is about love, really.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10Kiss me.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17The film was a massive hit and despite some unjust criticism of how the younger actors
0:54:17 > 0:54:21had been looked after, it trounced all-comers at the 2009 Oscars,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25winning eight gongs, including Best Director.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29But Danny seemed most excited when he brought the award back to Lancashire.
0:54:29 > 0:54:30This is amazing, innit?
0:54:30 > 0:54:34You expect it at the red carpet in LA, but not outside Radcliffe Close.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37It's so wonderful to see the Oscar.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40It was quite an emotional moment because it is such an iconic statue.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43Almost like something that's unobtainable to a family like us.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51Having expertly captured the daily struggle for survival
0:54:51 > 0:54:52in Mumbai's heaving slums,
0:54:52 > 0:54:56Danny's next challenge was to bring the same dramatic intensity to
0:54:56 > 0:55:00the tale of a man trapped all alone in a claustrophobic Utah canyon.
0:55:06 > 0:55:08Argh!
0:55:11 > 0:55:15127 Hours was based on the real life story of Aron Ralston,
0:55:15 > 0:55:19who had to perform frankly hideous self-surgery to survive.
0:55:21 > 0:55:23At the time, your contention,
0:55:23 > 0:55:26and indeed your main character's contention was,
0:55:26 > 0:55:28"It's what anybody would have done."
0:55:28 > 0:55:32It isn't. Had that been me, I would have just stayed there.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34I don't think you can say that.
0:55:34 > 0:55:37You'd think that now, but I think you would have a go.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39Urgh!
0:55:43 > 0:55:45And you wouldn't die there, Mark.
0:55:45 > 0:55:49You'd go, "No! I'll do something about this!" In the end. We would.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58People fainted and everything like that, but I think people,
0:55:58 > 0:56:02the surge that you feel when he sees that Dutch family in the distance...
0:56:03 > 0:56:05Help!
0:56:05 > 0:56:09..makes you believe that, in the end, we'll always keep trying.
0:56:09 > 0:56:11No matter what your circumstances,
0:56:11 > 0:56:15you will always keep that belief that you can get there in some way.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17I need help!
0:56:19 > 0:56:22You decide your own fate. Don't give up. You decide it.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31Danny's defining directing gift is energy.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34Energy on the set and putting energy onto the film.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37You know, he's constantly rocking, he's walking, he's pacing,
0:56:37 > 0:56:40he eats standing up, like everything about it is just energy.
0:56:40 > 0:56:45He works his ass off. He's like a brickie, you know?
0:56:45 > 0:56:48A good brickie. He works very, very hard.
0:56:48 > 0:56:51We do go that extra mile for Danny, for in Danny we trust.
0:56:51 > 0:56:56Er, and he's just brave and bold.
0:56:56 > 0:57:01He's got some kind of access to the nerve system of this country.
0:57:01 > 0:57:05Which makes him really unusual as an artist.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09It doesn't surprise me that he fulfilled that ambition
0:57:09 > 0:57:14which he undoubtedly had and talent which he undoubtedly had
0:57:14 > 0:57:16and has really made something of it.
0:57:18 > 0:57:20Something extraordinary of it.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24Now in his mid-50s, Danny shows no signs of letting up,
0:57:24 > 0:57:29and, after last summer, he's been repeatedly linked to the 007 hot-seat.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33The word that's been bandied around recently with you is Bond.
0:57:33 > 0:57:36Well, I've done the Bond film! Done that!
0:57:36 > 0:57:39- So, that's it. - Yeah, it was good.- That's it.
0:57:39 > 0:57:44It was a really short engagement and it was released to great applause.
0:57:44 > 0:57:46That's grand.
0:57:50 > 0:57:54- You wouldn't do a Bond feature? - Again, I think that's the oil tanker.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57I think the way that those kind of films are huge
0:57:57 > 0:58:00and they need a particular kind of captain and I just know
0:58:00 > 0:58:02from my own experience that I'm not that guy, really.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05I'm much better... What I've always wanted to do was to try
0:58:05 > 0:58:10and actually make it look like 100 million, but it doesn't cost that.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14And I find that really, actually liberating.
0:58:14 > 0:58:18- Danny, thank you very much. - Cheers, Mark. Very good.
0:58:18 > 0:58:22Very good, man. No notes! And you got the chronology almost exactly correct!
0:58:22 > 0:58:27# Danny Boy, oh, Danny Boy The pipes are calling
0:58:27 > 0:58:31# From glen to glen and even down the mountain side
0:58:31 > 0:58:32# Oh, Danny Boy!
0:58:32 > 0:58:36# The summer's gone and all the roses are fading
0:58:36 > 0:58:41# 'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide
0:58:41 > 0:58:45# But come ye back when the summer's in the meadow
0:58:45 > 0:58:50# Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
0:58:50 > 0:58:55# Yes, I'll be here in sunshine or in the shadow
0:58:55 > 0:58:57# Oh, Danny Boy, Oh, Danny Boy... #