Millions (2004)

There’s an old showbusiness tenet that recommends you should never work with children or animals, but then again, that saying basically favours the business rather than the show. Danny Boyle, on the other hand, enjoyed the experience immensely and has nothing but praise for his young stars. “The thing about working with kids is that you learn so much,” he says. “I’ve learnt more as a director working on this film than on anything else. You learn about acting, about presenting stories and you can see those kids grow as they take in information. They’re so hungry for knowledge, even if it sometimes appears they’re bored and want to get back to their Playstations. By the end of the shoot I could see a huge difference in them. We got to a stage where they didn’t need any telling.”

Meanwhile, for cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, the chance to step into a child’s mind offered more of an excuse to rip up the rulebook and experiment. “It’s an excuse to play,” he corrects, “and if you have a director who wants to play too, like Danny, that can be amazing.”

“Danny’s fantastic in two ways,” says producer Graham Broadbent, “he communicates his passion to the crew, meaning that the crew will go way beyond what they’d normally do on a film. But he also puts a huge amount into achieving what he wants, and he was truly amazing to watch with the children. He really knew how to get on their level and to inspire them. He worked really hard to build a relationship with them and he loved them and they loved him.

According to Frank Cottrell Boyce, Boyle came into his own during the scene in which Damian takes part in his school’s nativity play, “Danny sang the Christmas carol Little Donkey to the young extras to get them in the mood,” he says. “He sang it totally off-key, and I hope that wonderful moment will be on the DVD extras, because it’s just extraordinary how off-key he could be and still be breathing! He wasn’t just a bad singer, it was like he was doing the mating call of some other-worldly being!”

Boyle was very much aware of this scenario, and he embraced it. “As a director, sometimes you try and be as big a kid as possible,” he says. “I loved making this film because this time there was a reasonable excuse. Nobody was looking at me thinking, ‘Uh-oh, he’s completely lost it now.’ They thought I just was trying to make the kids feel at home...”

But despite this apparent clowning and not-so-serious behaviour, the film told its makers plenty about the lives and minds of children today – even Dod Mantle, who has a young son of his own. “Look at Alex,” he says. “Here’s a young boy who has obeyed no conventional acting rules,” he explains. “He’s eight years old and a bit of a wild card, so he just stands there in front of you and does what he does – which for me is wonderful. I’ve done a lot of documentaries where you’re forced to be spontaneous and in this case, Danny as a director and I as a cinematographer, both wanted to be spontaneous and try to find both a vibrancy and an insight into that irrational world in his little head.”

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