What Danny Boyle Said About The Beach
Danny Boyle in a published book of interviews talks about his career in depth and the films he made. When it came to the Beach he had this to say about why he didn't like the movie and what went wrong with it.
'The problem wasn't with the casting, it was with the script. We could never figure out the motivation for Richard's character. Why did he want to leave civilisation so desperately, what really attracted him to The Beach in the first place. Who was this guy. the character was flat and non existent on the page and that's an impossible position to put any actor in. I would see Leo sitting on the Beach with the Script trying to find something - anything in it that he could use. But it was impossible. No-one really knew where the film was going and because of that he had no way of knowing who his character really was. It wouldn't matter who played the part. I think the world of Ewan McGregor and Leo but nether of them could have made that part work because it didn't exist on the page to begin with.'
He goes on to say that Leonardo DiCaprio was a gentleman to work with and helped keep Fox off Boyls back when it came to making the movie. But he also learned from making the movie that the experience was overwhelming with such a big movie and that he never wanted to make a movie that big again.
He also mentions 3 incidents during production where they almost accident killed DiCaprio. Once by drowning, another by electrocution and the third in a storm scene where he and other actors almost got caught in the current.
He is very appreciative of DiCaprio, thinks the world of him and blames the script for the movies failure.
He says the main problem during the script sessions was that he was torn between the Studio that wanted Titanic 2 and Dicaprio who thought they we're doing an edgier movie much like the book. He admits in hindsight that they should have gone down DiCaprio's route, and knows that if he did the movie would have been more successful.
He expressed shock when told that DiCaprio was nominated for a worst actor award over the movie and again blames himself and the script. 'Oh... I didn't know that. I mean... I had no idea. Seriously. That's not right. that's not fair at all. Ewan McGregor couldn't have fared any better. No-one could.'