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.
I’ve never done a film before where every single person in the audience knows the ending. I mean suspense, twists are almost impossible these days. People are blogging your endings from their cinema seats.
Everybody expects you to be qualified to talk about your films, but in a way, you’re the least qualified person to talk about them. When you’re finished, you don’t watch them at all.
Actors want to impress at the beginning, so you take advantage of that by suddenly saying, ‘Right, you’re here for two weeks.’ What you’re doing is creating a siege mentality.
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 always think, when there’s stuff that people don’t like, I always say that if I have another success, I’ll enjoy it more, but you don’t really.
The extraordinary thing about India is that it’s such a family place. It’s full of families everywhere.
I’ve always wanted to do a space movie.
Good storytelling for me is not so much technical expertise, which I know is applauded often; it’s actually freshness of approach. It does mean you sometimes stumble and fall and make a horrible mess of things in seeking that freshness, but you should always keep trying to do that.
I’m always after putting people in extreme circumstances. I’m always after not knowing what I’m doing in those extreme circumstances.
Normally, I’m a very controlling director. Directors ARE controlling. It’s part of the job, but there’s various degrees of it and the constructs I normally work on are very controlling constructs.
You live your life and it ends quite quickly and all you can do with it is pass it on decently to someone else. Whether directly or indirectly, behave decently to other people.
To create the reality of space with this sense of suspension: nothing’s happening, it’s endless; we’re traveling at 28,000 kilometers an hour but nothing’s happening. Nothing! And you have to do that! There are all these rules you have to follow, I’ve never known anything like it.
The perfect equation is form equals content. The style of the film reflects the story, and that’s what you’re always aiming for. You’re not always necessarily successful at it, but that’s the ambition that you’re trying to do.
The individual will to survive is often seen as just that, an individual thing. In fact, it’s sort of a gene we all carry and like a network of computers it all contributes in some way to when it’s individually needed.
Clearly, you can think back and see that a character has had enormous odds stacked against him and has to overcome them. It’s usually a guy, I’m afraid. But then you’re setting up a new movie you have amnesia about these meetings, when you’ve discussed it more analytically.
I say to first time filmmakers that when they’re asked, they should go to America as you’re far more likely to get a chance.
If I was American, I think I’d live in New York, because I like that East Coast mentality. There’s nothing wrong with Hollywood. If you want to be a big time filmmaker, you should go to Hollywood.
You use elements of noir, but you don’t want it to be too noir-ish. You don’t want it to be advertised as though you’re asking people to go and watch an updated noir. I don’t think they’ll go do that. They want to see a modern story.
I always wanted to make this film or another film. I thought the worst thing you could do was to react to Slumdog’s success in some way. I thought it would be really foolish.
I find it difficult enough being called “Mr. Boyle,” which as I age I’m increasingly called.