Danny Boyle

The Beach. I would do it much better than the original guy.

We saw them a couple weekends ago in Mumbai. We try and visit them at least once a year. They're in school and doing ok. Actually better than ok. They're great kids. 14 now and they're growing up fast.

Smells like teen spirit.

It's your ambition, not your budget that should be unlimited if you want to good work.

I'm open to most genres. I like to play around with genre though...28 Days later was a Zombie Movie with no Zombies in it in my opinion; Slumdog was a Fairy Tale in genre terms but there are moments of real darkness in it; 127 Hours was an Action Movie about a guy who couldn't move... Trance is supposed to be a heist movie or an amnesia movie, or a femme fatale movie. but it's all of those things and none of those things really. the genre hooks are macguffins that give us a route into exploring ideas about perception, reality and madness.

Bowie, the Low album. Unkle. And Underworld. Fortunately, Rick Smith from Underworld did the whole score for Trance and managed to incorporate these influences and more.

I was lucky to work in the theatre first, where you get a real understanding of how actors work. This is a big help in moviemaking, where you often have very little time with them. I try to have at least a week's rehearsal to let the actors settle in and pop the bubble of the last movie they were in. I encourage them to act the story out vividly, rather than 'do nothing' which is always an option, and often works on films. I'm too well brought up to pick out individual actors, but right now James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent Cassel would be in my top 3.

In a shoebox, under the bed. It's very comfortable and best out of sight.

They've given freedom to pursue the stories I really want to tell. I try and keep the budgets low as well, which helps. There's no way any studio would make a film about a guy who's alone for 6 days and then cuts his arm off without the critical financial success of something like Slumdog behind it. So you have to take advantage of your success where you can.

Yes after each film my Dad saw he'd say 'Yeah, it's good, but not as good as Shallow Grave'. There is an innocence about making your first film which is like gold dust and I try and take some of that innocence into each new film I make...