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.
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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.
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