Why A Falling Out Prevented A 'Trainspotting' Sequel For Over Two Decades

"One of the problems was there was never a reason to do it," Boyle said of the two-decade gap between his Trainspotting films, during a promo visit to Sydney last week.

"Without it, we'll never manage to get [main cast, Ewen McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner] back again. As the 20-year anniversary loomed on the horizon a couple of years ago, we got back together. It's a much more personal film than you might expect and that personal thing is obviously the aging process; as their lives change or not change, really."

It seemed unlikely that a film centred around a group of heroin addicts living in Edinburgh would make a global impact, however Trainspotting did just that. Not only did it generate £48 million ($77 million) at the box office on a budget of just £1.5 million ($2.4 million), the black comedy drama was also listed in the top ten of the Top 100 British films by the British Film Institute. Needless to say, returning for a sequel was always going to be a daunting task.

"When you get back together again, you can't get away with any bullshit because everybody knows where you came from."

"It's kind of weird because it's a technical process," the 60-year-old UK director said of bringing the cast and crew back after all this time. "There's lots of make-up and costumes and everybody's got photographs — as soon as you've done a scene, they take a photograph of you and, of course, they've got the photos from the original. So everybody is looking at themselves 20 years ago. But they were brilliant. They really wanted to do it, I think. When you get back together again, you can't get away with any bullshit because everybody knows where you came from. You have to get on with it and respectfully of the original and what it did for you. It was more pleasurable then it was excruciating."

In order to make T2 Trainspotting, it was no secret that Boyle and McGregor would need to be on the same page, after the pair fell out not long after the original film was released. The story goes that after working on three films together (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary), McGregor was promised, as 'Danny Boyle's actor', to be cast as the lead in The Beach released in 2000, a role that would eventually be given to Leonardo DiCaprio.

While both admit that the whole fall-out should never have gotten that far, Boyle was candid when asked about it.

"It was my fault," he said. "And we didn't really talk to each other in that kind of British way; you never get emotional and talk about things."

In the lead-up to his eventual Oscar win for Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, Boyle attended an LA ceremony where he was to receive an award, which coincidentally enough, was to be presented by Ewan McGregor. "He'd given me this award and he made this speech at the beginning of it," Boyle recalled. "It was so touching and I felt terrible about my own behavior. So we made up then, though not in any particular chummy way, just very British."

It didn't take too long after that for Boyle to reach out to McGregor about a Trainspotting sequel. "I sent him the script and I said 'Listen, we should do this.' And he agreed because it was so good. And the four of them agreed and I knew they would because the film gives the room for them to matrix in their own experiences over that time. It becomes more than just playing a character in a story, it becomes about them as well in their own lives."

With the Academy Awards set for this Sunday (or Monday Australian time) it would be wrong to not ask an Oscar winner what their tip is, but Boyle handles it like a pro. "You're not meant to say," he laughs. "There are 6,000 votes, because if you win one, you get a vote in the future ones. I'm not allowed to say what I'm voting for but I know what I'm voting for. I normally never vote for one that's going to win, because I think it's more interesting to mix it up and give a vote to something that won't."