Danny Boyle

“It's a good place when all you have is hope and not expectations.”

“For us, destiny always feels... if you obey, it's almost a passive thing.”

“You know what actors are like; they moisturize every night. They're frozen in time.”

“I have this theory that your first film is always your best film in some way. I always try to get back to that moment when you're not relying on things you've done before.”

“You can have great sequences with music, but if you don't have the acting you're bored after 15 minutes. Or not bored, but you're like, 'So what?'”

“Movies about space raise those questions of what we're doing here, and that inevitably introduces a spiritual dimension.”

“Always changing genres, making very different films is a good idea. It's a way of making yourself feel vulnerable again, getting back to that innocence. As is working within a circumspect budget.”

“I'm a big sports fan. Football. Cricket.”

“I like action movies, even though I think action movies are kind of derided now. But there is something extraordinary about action movies, which is absolutely linked to the invention of cinema and what cinema is and why we love it.”

“I don't want to make pompous, serious films; I like films that have a kind of vivacity about them.”

“The extraordinary thing about India is that it's such a family place. It's full of families everywhere.”

“I want people to leave the cinema feeling that something's been confirmed for them about life.”

“It's not so much what you learn about Mumbai, it's what you learn about yourself, really. It's a funny old hippie thing, but it's true as well. You find out a lot about yourself and your tolerance, and about your inclusiveness.”

“Some of us are interested in directors, but really the vast majority of us are interested in actors. You experience the films through the actors, so they're all locked into your imagination in some kind of layer of fantasy or hatred or wherever they settle into your imagination.”

“Brian Cox is the nicest guy, but he's so arrogant.”

“Although I behave in a quite reserved way in my personal life, give me a stage and I'll be as flamboyant as I can.”

“I don't want people to sit there and objectively watch the film. I want them to experience it as something that's under their skin, so you try to make the films really tactile.”

“I love huge movies. Not sure I am the guy to make them, but you can rely on me being there watching them.”

“I've sort of escaped my background, as people often do, through art and culture.”

“You don't realize it, but often people are frightened of the director.”