This is Kamla Bhatt and today my guest is Danny Boyle who is director of Slumdog Millionaire, the surprise movie of 2008 that has won four Golden Globe awards and has won 10 Oscar nominations. The New York Time Magazine called Slumdog Millionaire “The ultimate Danny Boyle movie”. The film had a shoe string budget of less than $15 million and has grossed over $52 million at least until early January. Danny directed the critically acclaimed “Trainspotting”, “28 Days” and more recently Leonardo Di Caprio in a big budget Hollywood film called “Beaches”. But what Danny likes making are films that are lower down on the radar or as he puts it, not on the radar at all.

Danny won an Oscar for best director for Slumdog Millionaire. The movie went on to win 8 Oscars in 2009.

If you like, you can listen to a podcast of this interview.
Kamla: Welcome to the show.
Danny: Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

Kamla: How did you manage to put Slumdog Millionaire, the cast and crew, right in the middle of the radar?
Danny: “With lots of help” to be honest is the short answer. We had an extraordinary time making the film and with a huge kind of talent and application of the caste and crew — all of whom are really, apart from Dev Patel and a couple of people that I brought from London with me. Everybody is, basically from the Bollywood film industry. And it is a tribute to them really. And more widely to everybody in Mumbai who helped us make this film whether knowingly or unknowingly, in a way. Once we made the movie, we were very proud of the movie. There is whole different universe you enter, which is trying to get the movie on the radar as you put it. For that you need the support of your distributors and in Europe that is Path , a company called Path and in America, it is called Fox Searchlight. Fox Searchlight in particular, have done an extraordinary job since we first premiered the film in Telluride and in Toronto in September and had grown very very slowly and let it work by word of mouth, by not huge advertising, but by a kind of word of mouth, you know. And people talking to each other about the movie — that they are finding a movie that they want to recommend to friends. You cannot buy that kind of word of mouth. It is the only thing, it is the only really free, democratic thing that remains in this huge film industry and it is extraordinary the way it works. We have benefited from that enormously and when you appear in the award season and that one thing leads to another if you are very lucky. But you need a lot, a lot of help all along the way.

Kamla: So do you feel a little bit like Jamal with this jackpot and the Golden Globe and Oscars, especially considering that you lost your distributor a month before it was supposed to release?
Danny: Yes, I mean it is an extraordinary passage the film has had. There is an element in the film where destiny appears to play a role or is implied that destiny has played a role in Jamal’s fortune and in his journey through the film. And it certainly feels like that for the film itself because we have had some things that have happened where you just think “Oh, my goodness me that is the end.” And what I learned funnily enough from being in India was not to react with rage and terror to those events but actually to accept them and absorb them. You know the good things and the bad things come your way and you have to embrace them all. You are in a very privileged position as I am — as a film director. Whatever happens extraordinarily as I do not know whether the stars of the line show reward or something. Everything seems in the end to have worked out, to the benefit of everyone involved in the film. I think that is because in a way and the only way I can explain it because I don’t understand those forces. I have a glimpse of them and I am in awe of them. I just think that we made the film in the right spirit. Everybody involved in it approached it in the right spirit and I think in the end that does do you good, more than you know, almost more than anything else in a way. I think the spirit conveys itself in film sometimes and you sense that in the audience. The audience sense that unconsciously in a way and that helps them appreciate the film more or take the film to their heart, which they certainly have done around the world.

Kamla: So you mentioned something very interesting. You said you know, believe in the good. Isn’t that something that your mother taught you when you were growing up in Manchester?
Danny: It is actually. She is dead now, she has been long dead. She always said to me if you have not got anything good to say about people do not say anything at all. I do not quite follow that but the spirit of that I do follow and I always try to look at it in a positive way and try to look for the good in people. I think people respond to that and they often show you the good in them because we are made up of many different things on many different days. But if we seek the good in people, it is often there, I think and that is what I tried. Even though the films have very-often very dark elements in them, there is a life affirming nature to them, which I am really proud of it and Slumdog Millionaire, particularly I think, shows that – its triumph against all the odds for this kid. It is a very romantic idea obviously but it is something we all want to believe might happen. You see it because these are extraordinary things that you see. I am in Los Angeles at this moment promoting the film and there is a woman here who has given birth to eight babies and things like that. You say that is unbelievable and you wish them well and hope everything works out for them. But those kind of life reaffirming things I mean, where you believe in the power of life and the ongoing nature of life. The film celebrates — even though many of my films tried to celebrate, the origins of the films are dark in many ways and disturbing often.

Kamla: So how was your notion of destiny changed ever since you made the film because growing up as a Roman Catholic in England — you go to India and you make this film which is all about destiny. How was your notion of destiny changed because even the movie took on a “life of its own”, as you put it?
Danny: Yes, it has. I’d be honest; I am a rationalist or I was.

Kamla: Ok.
Danny: You know, I wanted to try and explain everything scientifically and I have learnt working in Mumbai for a year that there is another way of approaching things as well which is trusting other forces, which sometimes cannot be scientifically explained. But they still have a bearing on our lives in an extraordinary way. I think for a western audience the idea of destiny in this film is very charming, but I learned working and making great friends in India for the film that it has a very profound meaning as well. A very deep and profound meaning that it is very difficult to explain in words but you sense it very clearly. I’ll be absolutely honest I think we have benefited from it. I do not know who to thank, but even if there is a “who” to thank. I do thank whoever that “who” is.

Kamla: So how do you label the film? You know, you are from Manchester, Simon is from Yorkshire, the author is Indian and then you have Tessa Ross who put his whole project together?
Danny: Yes, well Tessa Ross…she is from Channel 4 Films has played an extraordinary role in beginning the project. She first commissioned Simon to adapt Vikas Swarup’s book; and put it together with Christine Colson, the producer and me the director. That is the kind of imaginative thinking that an executive… a really great executive producer, which she is. It is very creative, it is very “hands off” in the end. She is supportive, critical, when necessary, but also lets you get on and make the film. She was wonderful to us. Channel 4 television — the one she works for– they were going through a very tough time at the moment and it again it — the way these things work; it is wonderful that Slumdog Millionaire has had such a global impact and it helped channel 4 and her job there or play enormously. You know, to have this kind of profile — ironically and extraordinarily — at this very moment when there are on the terrible crash — financially you know.

Kamla: So how do you label the film? Is it a hybrid film, is it a British film?
Danny: I guess it is. It is obviously some kind of fusion in some kind of way. I mean, it begins, in many ways it owes its — some of its beginnings to British film for a couple of reasons. The game show was invented in Britain, ironically long time ago and has gone around the world and in India it is the biggest game show, you know its impact, its prize and you know its viewers… it is the biggest in the world. So that is an extraordinary connection. But I also think that there is realism at the beginning of the film, which has shocked some people in India. That is very British. That dependence on realism. You know, that I wanted to show some real locations and I wanted to check all the facts to make sure they were, I believe true; these things can happen, do happen and it is plausible within a society and that character could come out of that society. Obviously in the second half of the film, it takes on and it becomes more melodramatic and more — not a fantasy as such but it takes on a spirit that does owe itself partly to Mumbai and an extraordinary industry that it holds there. Because it is extraordinary that he wins it against all the odds. We want to believe that left really but its origins are kind of, I suppose the British realism set in India really which is why we filmed on real locations rather than film it in studios like a lot of Bollywood films do. Like we were advised to do. I declined that advice because I wanted to — I felt the only way a Westerner is going to get it even semi accurate is to do it in the real places with as many real people as possible. We did cast lots of people who lived there, who are in the film. We tried to as much as we could.

Kamla: And you also had that scene of the policeman saying “stop filming”.
Danny: I loved that. But you are not supposed to do things like that. But I leave things like that. That is the spirit of the film. A little glimpse into what it is like make a film you know. So we kept that bit in it.

Kamla: So what was it like to make a film for you in India because this was your first visit to India? How did you get a feel for the texture and the vibrancy of the city?
Danny: There is a great photographer Sebastian Selgado, who actually took one of the world’s most extraordinary photographs on Church Gate station in Mumbai. He was asked what was the most important piece of equipment for a photographer. He said your shoes. And I always think of that because you just got to get out and get about really. That is such an exciting thing to do in Mumbai. So that is the first thing. And the second thing is the people that you hire locally to help you make the film. We again had fortune play a role in this. We hired the most extraordinary good bunch of people to help us make the film, who we got to know and trust and I think they grew to know and trust us and we worked together on the film. So it is a fusion of those people… they helped us and all the mistakes in the film are my own. I would not blame them for any of those. But all the good things in the film I would blame them for because they are. Thanks to them that we are able to achieve any of it like now.

Kamla: So did you see any of Mira Nair’s films or read Shantaram before you started making the film?
Danny: I did not read Shantaram funnily enough and I know Mira Nair’s films very well and I am very indebted to them. And not just for the films themselves also for instance, the casting director who we hired which was like our first appointment and one of our best appointments. She was somebody who had worked with Mira and I had seen her work with Mira’s films and that is Loveleen Tandan. So that is a very key moment of Mira’s influence. Irrfan Khan has been in a number of Mira films was a key piece of casting for us. Salaam Bombay is a very, very inspirational film obviously. And closer in time is Namesake, which Irrfan and Tabu are in, giving two extraordinary performances. So there are lots of things that you are inspired by. I am also inspired by Shekhar Kapur and films like Bandit Queen, but also the fact that he came to Britain and made two period dramas. You know that the thing with the British is we specialize in them and he shows them how to do them. He made a little bit of the Golden Age and that gave me the confidence because I thought it’s — you know, a British guy going to India making a film on India. I think, basically what Shekhar’s is I’m trying to do is something as good as Shekar has done. So with people like that you get all sorts of inspiration from — certainly, yeah.

Kamla: Did you watch Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding? Have people made any kind of a connection saying that Slumdog is celebrating Bombay’s spirit to some extent whereas Mira Nair’s film celebrated the Delhi spirit to some extent?
Danny: It did, didn’t it? I mean it is a wonderful film obviously, a wonderful film. That was one of the films I think Loveleen Tandan is working on, whom we hired as the casting director. Yes, it was a wonderfully inspiring film to watch and enjoy. I mean I could not make a film like Monsoon Wedding. Our film is a very picaresque in a sense …it is very Dickensian…it has a kind of wide scope, an epic scope rather than being the kind of very beautiful, fine detail that Mira works on in her movies. But it is a very inspiring film to watch.

Kamla: How did you prepare for shooting the film? As a director how did you surrender to India and at the same time maintain control over the narrative? How did that happen?
Danny: Well, what helped me is I obviously got some experience, but I abandoned it. The experience gave me the confidence to abandon my experience — if you see what I mean? Because I realized very quickly from walking around in the city and living in the city, there is no way you can control this city. You know in the way that film directors try to control films. I thought you have got to approach it differently because of this extraordinary tidal wave of circular energy that flows through the city in the day that anybody who has been there will know. I mean it is just extra ordinary and you have never seen as many people in your life. Each day; you probably see a million people and you think when am I ever going to be able to say that ever again in my life? I wanted to benefit from that, so I let the film ride on my wide wave and it means you do not get the old things, the old things that you normally expect like continuity, control of detail, the ability to repeat things exactly and all that kind of stuff. You do not get those kinds of elements or what you do get and it is hundred times better; the compensation you get, is your narrative is then in this wave of energy in the city and it helps to create a kind of realism and it helps benefit from the spirit of the city, which despite all the problems of the city and they are manifold obviously and manifest are huge — it has a breath-taking resilience and resourcefulness and joy in life. That is what we wanted to try and ultimately capture a bit of that. But, there is no way anybody can capture that city entirely. Obviously you are ambitious and you think you can. If you are lucky and you are blessed, you will capture a bit of it — you know and that is what we hoped to do, that was all.

Kamla: So when you saw the rushes for the film, when you saw the first copy before Rahman started making the music, what went through your mind? Did you think that this film would work?
Danny: When we finished, I saw a three-hour cut of the film, which is what you start with and where everything is and it’s not fine cut yet. I remember thinking we have caught a bit of it. Now there were lots of problems that we are going through in the editing and it was a wonderful process that we have edited in the film, but I thought we had got a bit of it. I did think about it yes, and that was inspiring because it pushes you on into the next stage then. Which is to craft the film you know, reduce it to 2 hours and hone it, shape it and then, give it to this guy A R Rahman. That was a late and huge benefit to the film giving it to him you know what he added to the film his extraordinary, which is what you hope from your musical composer you know.

Kamla: And you told him — is it true that you told him no cellos?
Danny: I did but I am sure if there are cellos there, I know because he just hid them. I do not like cellos because they are usually used in a mournful way. I have nothing personal against cellos. Well, I do actually. I wouldn’t want to upset any cellists. Basically what I was trying to say was I wanted it to be and I also did not want it to be smooth in the film…his work on the film, I wanted him to be jagged and surprising because this city as you know is not a smooth transition day by day; huge extremes of banging into each other all the time and I wanted him to do that in the music. Of course the genius as he is, the Mozart of Madras or the Tchaikovsky Chennai or whatever it is that you want call him now. He can do that and he can work superbly on the film and we got three nominations for him which I think is unprecedented. I was so pleased with all that because I know what he means to people who love cinema in India and I have been there enough to know what he means. Not only that but it is well deserved as well, it is well earned, it is extraordinary sound track I think.

Kamla: How did you come to choose him?
Danny: Well, I obviously was looking around and listening to music. He was just outstanding and the way that everybody spoke about him, I just thought I should just go and try. I took the chances of getting into were very small. He is usually busy and I sent him the film and he was most gracious about this and wanted to have to go with it because I think it was a lovely change for him because he had not worked with any westerner on a film before. So I think it was a nice challenge for him really. We worked together very well. He does not say very much, which is wise because musicians cannot really talk about music. They say talking about music is like dancing about architecture and it does not really make any sense and it is true.

Kamla: And he is famous for his short e-mails.
Danny: Yes, he sends these really cryptic e-mails, very, very short. In fact he said to us — when I sent him the film — he said I enjoyed your film very much. He said it reminded me of “Shawshank Redemption”. I did not understand at all and I wrote back and I said oh! I think you mean “Usual Suspects” because “Usual Suspects” also uses a very fluid timeline that doesn’t announce itself, it doesn’t feel like flash backs and he said — no, I know “Usual Suspects” and like it very much. I meant “Shawshank Redemption”.

Kamla: And he meant “Shawshank Redemption” why and in what sense?
Danny: I do not know. I still have not worked it out; you will have to ask him.

Kamla: I will.
Danny: Get an interview with him and ask him why he said “Shawshank Redemption.”

Kamla: I am interviewing him in a couple of days so I will ask him.
Danny: Good.

Kamla: This question is about the mixed reviews that you have got in India and there has been a case filed against the title.
Danny: Yes.
Kamla: What is your reaction and then what do you make of it?

Danny: Yes. Listen I had this huge privilege of working there for a year with enormous support and incredible inspiration. I also know my responsibility is to accept criticism completely. However, the title thing is — I really have to speak about that. The use of Slumdog is not meant as an insult; it is quite the reverse, which I believe the people who brought this court case believed. The film is a celebration of an underdog who lives in — who comes from the slums really and that is where the title has arisen.
It is used in a pejorative way in that one character within the film, a policemen but it is not meant for the film makers in a pejorative way at all. And I will on my mother’s grave — I will stand there and tell you that. The film is a celebration, a vindication — a triumph for someone who comes from very humble and very limited background and yet triumphs against the resources, the glitz, the glamour of money, fame, television, the authorities, everybody. He out wits them all and he does it because he is not entranced by any of their illusions, he is entranced by love and dedicated to love. I am very proud of his triumph in the film and of our role in the film in presenting that triumph.

Kamla: And what about the children? Again there are stories about the children.
Danny: Well we tried to know ever since we have been making the film to look after the children in a long term way. Two of the children come from very poor backgrounds. The film benefited from it enormously. We have tried to protect them as much as possible by putting in place a long-term plan for their education. They are attending an extraordinary school and they will do so hopefully until they are 18. Provided they continue with school and pass their exams, provided they attend seriously their school, over all that time. This will be long that film has vanished into history. A substantial sum of money will be released to them from a fund that we have set aside. A dedicated bank account has been set aside for them and all the people who have influence on the film in terms of distribution…. the moneyed people in the film have contributed to that fund and will continue to contribute to that fund.
So it is a long-term plan for them. We discussed it many times and they started that way. When we finished filming in February last year, they started school shortly after that. In fact, I went to see them at the school a couple of weeks ago and it is wonderful to see the benefit that they are already getting from it. You can see them and their confidence grow with the education. I know people in India really, really value education as we all do. And it is the way you can make some — that the film, which benefits from someone can actually give them some genuine long-term benefit, which could really change their lives in a proper way. It was lovely to see them benefiting from it. The other kids who are in the film keep are all in education anyway and they are all you know… we are trying to stop them getting too close up to this whole world of the film so that they can concentrate on their school work. Because their parents are worried about the film was distracting them all time from what they should be getting along with, when they realize which is far more important than this film which just looks important at this moment.

Kamla: Danny, are you going to make any Bollywood movie? There are rumours you spoke with Aamir Khan? You hung out with him at a party when you were in India?
Danny: Oh he is — I saw his movie TZP and you know it is an extraordinary movie. In fact gave him an award at the award ceremony. I was honored to present him with an award for that movie. I thought the movie was extraordinary and of course Taare is as good as any movie I have seen in the last 5 years. I mean it really is. To get inside the mind, the world, and the eyes of a dyslexic child is extraordinary. To do it within the mainstream Bollywood tradition is extraordinary you know. To ride those two horses in that way. I admire him enormously as a performer and as a director. I would love to make a thriller in Mumbai. I really would. Seems like an extraordinary city. We’d make a picaresque film if you like with the thriller elements in it but there is romance, there is comedy; there are all sorts of things in it. All the time, I was working, I was thinking — “God, you could make a thriller here!” And then you have got people like Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan. You look at their acting talent — the pool of acting talent, which I do not think, is recognized in the West because most of the guys do not work in English. You know like for Anil, it was his first film in English. It is an extraordinary achievement for him to make his first film in English like this. You look at that pool of acting talent and you look at what the city offers you in terms of a thriller and you think — it’s got to be, isn’t it? We got to able to make a thriller here. There is going to be more and more people working in your country these days you know this century. I’ll be long gone but people will be drawn to it in the way that people have been drawn to America for so long in the last century to make movies in America. It will happen more and more. You are going to get used to it and I am afraid even if you don’t like it very much.
Kamla: Danny, we wish you all the best for Oscars and thank you so much for your time.

Danny: Kamla, thank you very much indeed. Very nice to talk to you.

Kamla: Thank you Danny.
Danny: Bye bye now.