2007's Space Odyssey: Q&A With 'Sunshine' Director Danny Boyle (Continued)

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You've had a few actors really jumpstart their careers in your films, folks like Ewan McGregor, Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris. Is there anyone from 'Sunshine' that you see following that trend?
They're not discoveries, really. They're more people who have a track record or people that I always wanted to work with or I've admired, like Cliff Curtis and Michelle Yeoh, people like that. You think that you have to get them in a film one day, but more than likely you'll never get them in films, especially one in which you can put them all together. That's what great about space is that you can use an international cast and it's not a big issue. Nationality doesn't matter, race doesn't matter. It's quite difficult to think of scenarios on Earth where you can do that; casting tends to be quite self-conscious. In space you just accept it; you just go "OK that's the crew."

Were there any particular roles that you'd seen these people in that made you think, "This is the person that I want for this role"?
I tend to watch actors and just really like them. Michelle Yeoh, always loved her, saw her in the Bond film and then 'Crouching Tiger,' and always thought, "God I'd love to work with that woman." She's so independent and so her own woman. So we met her first, actually, and offered her anything, because again the roles are not gender-specific. You could cast them male or female, well most of them. And then Chris Evans, I just met in a room. I hadn't seen 'Fantastic Four' yet, it hadn't come out. But I met him in the room and we just thought he was a wonderful actor. So I didn't have any preconception of him. I think a lot of people have a preconception about Chris because of 'Fantastic Four,' but I didn't have that. I just thought, "This is an excellent actor." I come from the theater, originally. I feel like Chris could go on and do Iago in 'Othello,' he could just walk on stage and do it. Whereas lots of actors you work with in films can't. But he's a proper actor, he knows how to do it. And Cliff Curtis, I had seen him in 'Whale Rider' and 'Training Day.' He was excellent in that. Troy Garity, I'd never seen in anything. I watched 'Barbershop' after I cast him and I didn't really recognize him anyway. He's excellent. The casting director said I think you should see this guy, he's very underrated, very special, so I just cast him.

He has the pedigree, obviously [as son of Jane Fonda]. He's making it. I mean he played 'Intern' in 'Conspiracy Theory.'
He's making his own way. I don't think he ever mentioned once, you know, where he comes from and all that stuff, because he really wants to do it himself. So he was excellent.




At what point did you, [screenwriter] Alex Garland and Cillian Murphy decide to work together? Was it a group decision or did it just come together piece by piece?
Well, we started casting the film and we hadn't thought of Cillian initially. I think that's probably because we saw that [his character] would be American and we know Cillian more from British movies rather than things like 'Red Eye' or 'Batman Begins.' But then I think we had seen 'Batman' and thought that he was superb. He nearly steals the film, and his American accent is impeccable. It's weird, the Irish are really good at American accents. So we thought, why not Cillian, and we read him like we read everybody. And he was fantastic, so he earned the part. And then we thought, this makes such sense, because the success of '28 Days Later' is what allowed us to have [a $40 million budget]. So we can cast whoever we want up to that level and then it suddenly made a lot of sense to have Cillian in it again. So yeah, sometimes the most obvious thing has to pop up in front of you.

Had you guys ever contemplated doing '28 Weeks Later' together?
We talked about it, and there was always a possibility of doing it. But ['Sunshine'] took so long, that I couldn't contemplate it at all. And I know that although he is uncredited, Alex did write some of the script. So we made a mark upon it really, and I kind of recommended [director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo], and I also recommended the designer and the editor and the composer. It bears strong connections with ['28 Days Later'], but I think it was very useful to let someone else do it, to get a different eye on it.

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