Director's Reel: Danny Boyle Talks 'Trainspotting,' '28 Days Later,' 'Slumdog Millionaire,' and More

Many qualities bind the eclectic films of Danny Boyle: highly stylized aesthetics, great soundtracks, the introduction of future stars (Ewan McGregor, Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Dev Patel), and, perhaps above all, constant pulses of energy. Boyle had a heap of U.K. theater productions and TV movies to his credit when he attained international acclaim with the 1994 black comedy-thriller Shallow Grave. While the Hitchcockian murder tale (which Boyle admitted was “stolen from the Coen brothers'” breakout Blood Simple) put him on the map, it was the 1996 adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting — about a group of heroin addicts living the high life in Edinburgh — that truly established the director’s style.