Danny Boyle: 'I was calm as Olympic opening ceremony baffled the world' (Q318 preview)

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Danny Boyle has told Q he was surprisingly "calm" throughout the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Speaking in our new issue, Q318 out now, the director and some of the key players take us behind the scenes of the summer's showpiece event.

"I was surprisingly calm," declares Boyle of the night itself, 27 July. "If you experienced it like you experienced other things, it's so massive it would probably destroy you, so you put it through different filters."

Despite the pressure the Trainspotting director reveals he didn't hesitate when first offered the job because he knew he didn't have to compete with the Beijing Games' spectacular opening.

"Nothing could be bigger than that," he admits. "You can't compete with Beijing, and that liberated us to do something more personal. We wanted to make it for ourselves and if it baffled the rest of the world then fine... It really meant something to people that we didn't fuck it up."

Grab the new issue of Q now for the full story of the opening ceremony, the build-up, the involvement of Underworld (pictured with Boyle above), how James Bond met the Queen, the night itself and more.

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11:09 AM | 29/11/2012

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