Danny Boyle on 127 Hours, the Olympics and How to Deal with Nerves (Literally)

When Danny Boyle has an idea for a film, nothing is going to stop Danny Boyle from doing that film his way. Take 127 Hours, which almost didn't happen for a couple of reasons: First, Boyle thought to tell the story of hiker Aron Ralston's five-day ordeal completely from Ralston's perspective in the canyon in which he was trapped -- and from which he eventually extricated himself by amputating his own arm from beneath a boulder. A few years later, after Ralston finally agreed to the format, Slumdog Millionaire screenwriter Simon Beaufoy then balked at Boyle's offer, saying Boyle's vision was too entrenched in the Oscar-winning director's head. And what did Boyle do? What else? With Beaufoy's help, he wrote the screenplay.

Thus 127 Hours, the remarkable story of Ralston's time in -- and bloody escape from -- that Utah canyon. I spoke to Boyle about his own journey of survival on the project, his sense for choosing actors (including 127's stunning lead James Franco), the infamous amputation scene and why Hollywood always seems to produce two movies of identical topics at the exact same time.

[Spoilers follow]

As opposed to your other films, why were you involved in the screenplay with 127 Hours?

Because it was an adaptation of a book, I first wanted to approach Aron about it. I heard about the story in 2003 but I read his book in 2006. And then I wanted to approach him, so I wrote out a few pages of a particular approach. Because it's not a dialogue-based movie, it was always going to be slightly unconventional. And, also, I had this vision, this idea, about making the first-person experience not like the book -- which is intercut chapters of the canyon with the story outside the canyon going on: people looking for him, people missing him, or whatever. Back story and significant events in his life. And I thought, no, I want to do it just staying in the canyon.

I wrote it out, six pages, and then it didn't happen because Aron wanted to do it [as] more of a documentary at that time. So when we got back together again after Slumdog, I still had the same idea of how to do it, but Aron was more flexible about that now. So then it was a question of who was going to write it. So [producer] Christian [Colson] and I assumed Simon. We were all friends; we worked together very well, and he was a climber. A quite serious climber. We thought -- oh, this is easy. [Simon] said no!

Really?

I think he said no because... Well, he says that he said no because he couldn't really see it. I think the real reason he said no was because he knew I had an idea in my mind. And as an experienced screenwriter, he knew if he produced the first draft I would just be disappointed. Because I had too firm an idea.

Who was responsible for the humor in the film? There are some really fun scenes, which was shocking because you're expecting...

Grim?

Yeah, grim. But there are some actual laugh-out-loud scenes.

You've got to have humor in it. You've got to. You've got to have humor and surprise, because the tone. You've only got one character. James was going to have to be able to inhabit a number of different characters in terms of tone. And we were going to have to provide the opportunity for him to change the tone; we would need to change the tone with music, with editing, different ingredients you'd throw in there. The great scene that you're probably referring to is the talk show host?

Yes.

Simon wrote that.

I mean, there's a laugh track. I wasn't expecting that.

Well, we put the laugh track on, but he wrote the scene, which was brilliant. And, of course James inhabits the scene with that comic ability that I only realized he had when I saw Pineapple Express. He had that comic ability to be able to inhabit it. To make it real and touching, which you need to be as well. But also before that, funny. And it comes, obviously, at the low point. He just had that dream about a bloody flash-flood which both killed him and releases him and quenches his thirst, but it also takes him to his girl and he can't speak. It's a nightmare. It's a low point for him. And he comes out of it going, "Hi everybody! It's 7 a.m. here in Canyonland, USA!"

I'm not trying to make comparisons between these two movies -- because they are so different -- but as far as people being trapped, at the end of Buried I wanted to kill myself. After 127 Hours, I felt a little inspired.

I haven't seen Buried but it's really weird. It's only just been released in the U.K. and I had left to come on this tour so I didn't get a chance to see it. I was like, Should I see it? And then I thought that it was probably better if I don't see it, because, otherwise, I'll just get drawn into talking about the differences between the two. Because you wait... Well, (laughs) nobody waits for movies like this, it's not exactly something you look forward to. But there's a 10-year gap between [when] a movie comes along and, of course, two come along at once. The last one was, what, Cast Away?

I think it was. That' a good point, the two asteroid movies came out the same year, Armageddon and Deep Impact.

And then two ant movies came at once: A Bug's Life and Antz, they came along at the same time...

And two volcano movies, Dante's Peak and Volcano. Why is that?

It's a death wish. Because you know one of them is going to do worse than the other.

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