Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy: After ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ risking it with ‘127 Hours’

Before they joined forces on “127 Hours,” director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy had collaborated on just one movie — but what a film that was. “Slumdog Millionaire” not only swept 2009’s Academy Awards but also gave Boyle (who won for best director) and Beaufoy (who won for adapted screenplay) the commercial momentum and creative freedom to make, as they call it, “an action movie in which the hero doesn’t move.”

The pair’s adaptation of hiker Aron Ralston’s memoir of how he cut off his own forearm to escape a climbing accident is considered a lock for a best picture nomination, and star James Franco (who plays Ralston) is likely to be shortlisted for the lead actor Oscar. Boyle, who also directed “28 Days Later” and “Trainspotting” among other art-house hits, and Beaufoy, who wrote “The Full Monty,” recently talked about how they collaborate, solve creative problems and rewrite facts to get at larger truths.

Simon, when you told Danny that adapting Ralston’s book “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” was impossible, it sounds as if he was excited, rather than worried, about the task’s immense challenges.

Beaufoy [to Boyle]: A little light goes on in your eyes whenever anything is really difficult. You always said that about the casting in “Slumdog Millionaire” — “We’ll never get a group of people who can play children, teenagers and adults.” And as soon as you said that, it kind of fired you up.

Why did you think Simon was the right person to write the screenplay?

Boyle: He was so obvious, and yet it was extraordinary what happened. We obviously had a great experience on “Slumdog.” But not only did [producer Christian Colson] and I agree that this

was one story we could tell, but Christian also said, “Simon’s a climber. He’s climbed the north face of Eiger, one of the tallest mountains in Europe. We couldn’t find anyone better.” Simon was perfect. And he said no.

You said no?

Beaufoy: Chiefly, I had a problem with the book. I read all of the climbing literature, because I love all that stuff. And I didn’t feel I was getting to the bottom of this person somehow. Of all the climbing books that I read, I understood this person the least. And then there were the obvious problems. He doesn’t move for five days. It’s him on his own. I didn’t see the concentric rings — how the sum was greater than its parts. To be completely honest, it was a lack of vision on my part.

So what was in Danny’s outline that changed your mind, Simon?

Beaufoy: The energy in it. My pedestrian interpretation of the book was that it would be very dull. I couldn’t quite see it.

Boyle: I think it was because you, on some level, thought if you wrote it straight off, it would be disappointing to me. Because I had it in my head. And you threw down the gauntlet and said, “You should go and write it yourself, and then you might be able to do something with it.” And that was a big challenge, because I’d never written properly on my own.

How did you come up with the triptych, three strips of film showing different parts of the story simultaneously?

Boyle: They were a stylistic device to get around the fact that, initially, Aron’s days were very repetitive. You had to show how repetitive they were, but you needed to show them in a way that wouldn’t bore the audience to death. Simon took the triptychs and made them much more narrative, especially in the middle of the film, by introducing the idea that Aron was destined for this — that all these things are coming together, three screens coming together, into me and this boulder and my responsibility for being here.

Aron was part of the filmmaking process, and yet you are taking his real-life story and in front of his eyes rewriting it, after he initially wanted the story told as a documentary.

Boyle: I was very clear with Aron. I said to him that I wanted an actor to play him and it would be our telling of his story, and that would involve his relinquishing control.... I always said we’d be faithful to the story, but what you’re really being faithful to is your own tastes, your own instincts of how to tell the story. It’s why I’m not a documentary filmmaker. Because I want to do scenes like Aron’s pretending to be a chat show host, because that’s the way I want people to experience the story as an audience.

Beaufoy: We wanted to get to an emotional truth. I talked to Aron a lot about the difference between actuality and fact and fiction — and what the slippery word “truth” means. In fictionalizing something, you can get closer to the emotional truth.

How do you solve creative problems?

Beaufoy: There’s a third person in the room — Christian. The three of us get together in a room and we will argue something out forcefully. There’s always a solution. There’s never a dead end. We sit there until it works, even if it means we rewrite scenes completely. The breakup scene between Aron and his girlfriend I wrote in a bedroom. Danny rewrote it so that it happens in front of 10,000 people in a basketball arena. It couldn’t have been farther from what I wanted, even though the dialogue was exactly the same. It’s a trust issue — if that’s the way you really see it, then let’s do it.

Did anything from “Slumdog Millionaire” make “127 Hours” easier? Particularly its success?

Boyle: There was the confidence of a working partnership. There was a confidence of technique — of an approach cinematically — just a general confidence that you get off a hit. You can’t deny it — even though you should, really — but it undeniably gives you a boost. It allows you to push ideas through with people who might otherwise be resistant.

Beaufoy: Being able to take risks is a very privileged place to be in, because filmmaking is actually the most risk-adverse industry. I read some big Variety article where the head of a big company said, “We’re risk-adverse and proud of it.” I was rather shocked and appalled by that. I think “Slumdog” buys you a certain amount of ability to take risks.

john.horn@latimes.com