“I think your first film is always your best film. Always. It may not be your most successful or your technically most accomplished, whatever. It is your best film in a way because you never, ever get close to that feeling of not knowing what you're doing again. And that feeling of not knowing what you're doing is an amazing place to be. If you can cope with it and not panic, it's amazing. It's guesswork, inventiveness and freshness that you never get again.”

“I want my films to be life-affirming, even a film like Trainspotting (1996), which is very dark in many ways. I want people to leave the cinema feeling that something's been confirmed for them about life.”

Born and raised a catholic by parents of Irish origins, Danny Boyle was going to be a priest until the age of 14 when a local priest persuaded him against it.  He was educated at Thornleigh Salesian College and Bangor University.  He then worked in the Joint Stock Theatre Company before moving to the Royal Court Theatre in 1982 and then the Royal Shakespeare Company where he directed five plays.  A spell in TV in Northern Ireland followed before his first film A Shallow Grave, in 1994 which was the most successful English film for some time.  This was followed by Trainspotting  which established him as a director to watch on the international scene.  Then he moved to Hollywood and a string of films, some successful, some less so, but always anticipated with great expectations by the critics and public alike.  He is now working on a few films including Ponte Tower and Solomon Grundy.