I might be lying in this heading here, but it is the most poetic I could think of.
I have just had the best time of my life. As per annum since 2025, I have spent a certain portion of October heading to the cinemas for previews of the films that are very much anticipated galas at that year’s London Film Festival. Last year, I saw Hamnet, The Mastermind, and Frankenstein.
Considering that was my first time, I believe I did quite a good job nailing some of my most anticipated of the year, along with the actual in-person stuff at LFF for very specified galas and early-access previews the day after and such; this includes After the Hunt, Bugonia, Jay Kelly and The Testament of Ann Lee.
The night before this, on October 17th, I had quite a hectic time beforehand. I did what you do as a uni student in Manchester; I went on a pub crawl with my film society, on high after getting the news of meeting Danny Boyle for real, it ended at NQ64, one of the two in the city centre (I think most went to the one in Northern Quarter, whereas we ended up by Great Northern), then me and some friends partied at 42nd Street–between uni students, it is divisive–but I love the music nonetheless.
We got out at 3am when they kicked us out. I wouldn’t shut up about the Danny Boyle of it all, then went to a friend’s accommodation, in which I would not leave till 7:30am. Then, I had–not a walk of shame–but a walk of pride, I call it, as I felt rejuvenated from spending time with newfound friends and knowing it won’t be going anywhere.
I got into my own bed by 8am and didn’t have much of a rest as I was filming for a weekly film as an extended induction at uni, so I filmed some more of that, then it came to half 3 when I would be marching my way to HOME for the main event.
His screen talk was extremely insightful.
He spoke about 28 Days Later, detailing the opening sequence with Cillian in a secluded London and the use of the Godspeed You! Black Emperor track without current licensing saying “oh fuck that’s good”, knowing that he has created something good. What I found the most bizarre is how producers thought of it; they said, according to Boyle, “It’s a bit MTV” and this stretches to Trainspotting and majority of his films with their conversation with pop music and licensed material. He went on to say “one of the enemies of the work is self-consciousness” and that you should (paraphrasing Jame Campion and saying) “be like a kid because it’s a kid’s game.”
That lit a fire in me, realising that it is all just a big playground, so play.
Very slightly, during Boyle’s average tangent of “six degrees of separation”, he spoke of the time he did Slumdog Millionaire, that he has been very vocal that he could never do again and understands any pushback of people who watch it now with distaste. He mentioned when he met Murdoch at the time because of it being a film acquired and produced by Fox Searchlight, Rupert Murdoch’s own craft. “When you make that much money, you get to go to a barbecue”.
After seeing the film in relation to this, I cannot help but feel this to be a stab of comedic precision, as the final scene of the film shows Murdoch and Lamb in the Rules Restaurant in Covent Garden, frequented by workers of The Sun and the restaurant that opened the film. It does kind of show a very high-class and wealthy way of looking at business. When, in retrospect, with the quotation from Boyle himself, there is a lot more realism there than the artifice constructed by what Murdoch thinks is acceptable for meetings in that way.
The way Danny spoke about his work with Aaron Sorkin, as somebody questioned him directly about it near the end of the screen talk, he gave almost very comedic answers.
“He looks a bit WASP-y and like a professor of medicine or literature”, which I suppose is true, with his whole unorthodox way of writing dialogue sounding like music, which had never been done; “he doesn’t mean the words, but the semi-colons”. Sorkin himself also does have a bit of humour up his sleeve too; Boyle explained during their partnership on 2015’s Steve Jobs, he told Boyle deadpan “you turned down a knighthood, they’re a babe magnet.”, Boyle noted that Sorkin had a vocal inflection that made it even that more funny.
My question that I asked Danny was the following: “when it comes to collaboration, like with screenwriters such as Aaron Sorkin and composers like Daniel Pemberton, who you worked with both on with Steve Jobs and continued to collaborate with through the soundtrack of Ink, what draws you to the uniqueness of them as creatives and you as a director?”
It was quite a stressful thing. I was sat behind him, so it was a bit of a fright for him, which made us all laugh a little bit. His response to my question really profoundly hit me.
“The collaboration is all about friendship and you should always keep onto those forever.” or, at least, something to that effect. I don’t think I can remember it two or so weeks later because it was so profound that I must have just hit me like a train and I could and cannot structure my thoughts any better.
It hit me as, having done the BFI Film Academy and HOME Film Collective in the 2026 season and having made friends that are older than me, I have joined university (at MMU, a place he advocates for and occasionally does talks with filmmaking students, of which I am one) and made friends with people in my course, societies and lectures that it makes me excited and hopeful for my future as a filmmaker; I could tell that he was insinuating to me that this time of special collaboration has only just become and can make or break you and give you so much material to work from, considering the lives you and your friends will share.
I had a secondary question in case my question didn’t exactly float his boat: “what is some of your favourite real life, contemporary landmarks shown in films or ones that you find interesting and want to incorporate into future projects? I’m thinking Lady Liberty in the closing image of Planet of the Apes and The Angel of the North in 28 Years Later.”
Later would I realise, before scrapping this question, the whole idea of Fleet Street in his latest, Ink, an adaptation of the Tony and Olivier award-winning play by James Graham, is a landmark of its own that I was not particularly accustomed to.
Danny Boyle’s filmography is one that felt like it saved me in some respect. Having been an extra in yesterday, which I told him about and was what drove me to be a filmmaking student at MMU, along with my love for his work on Steve Jobs, it became this thing of reflecting on somebody’s work that I did not realise impacted me so much until later inspection.
I really enjoyed Ink for what it was, because it was a very interesting adaptation and study of the media cycle, especially during a time of The Rise of the Teenager and the idea of pre-pubescent rebellion. This film hints at the idea of systemic rebellion too, through a medium where expression is key.
The performances are truly standout, but I won’t talk about it too much as I am sure there is already a review up sooner rather than later on the site and I don’t want to take full credit, but just know my consensus is it is definitely worth it; it is, in my eyes, Trainspotting and Steve Jobs with a splash of Kubrick’s Lolita on tabloid levels of crack cocaine.
He might be in hot water as of the minute with AI and what Ink as a film stands for, but he will always be in my good books as far as I am concerned, because he gave me a shot.
Ink is released in UK cinemas January 8th 2027
