The beach of 25: How Danny Boyle’s dividing thriller almost sank Leonardo DiCaprio (and upset Wang McGregor) – The Independent

Table of Contents

Toggle

Sign up in our free Indyarts Bulletin for all the most new entertainment news and reviews

Sign up with our free Indyarts newsletter

Sign up with our free Indyarts newsletter

SOverrising is washed Beach Long before he hit theaters. The director of Danny Boyle and the participation of Leonardo DiCaprio-who was still riding with the cashier Titanist – The backpack tale, disappearing, was the first major movie of the new millennium to arrive on February 11, 2000. But as early as January 1999, when the film was still starring on the Thai island -The shores that protesters of the environment were gathering against the production of $ 50 million (£ 40 million). The filmmakers were accused of spoiling their beach Paradisiac. It was an irony as clear as the deep blue sea – and the one that exceeded the environmental impact.

Boyle himself will later admit that Beach It could have been better, calling it “the least pleasant personal experience of a movie.” But it is debatable that he has never received a fair shake. Twenty-five years on, she remains imperfectly fine, from the thriller to the moment, who, like DiCaprio-Guby’s character, like a little at the end.

Alex Garland’s original novel, published in 1996, is a Bible with Gen-X counterculture. Telling the history of tourists who discover the mythical Thai beach-his secret, the self-sufficient community of idealists of the hippie book, concluded with a tendency of thinking to avoid seizures of Western consumerism. Garland, inspired by his own time in the Philippines, had intended Beach be a shrewd spending of such a way Beach As she enjoyed Thailand in the nineties, she replied: “All He was reading it. “

Boyle came across the book after his Frenetic Adaptation of Irrin Wales Trainspotting In 1996, almost in the same way as other readers: mouth to mouth. “It was like reading Trainspotting In the sense that he was not very well known at that moment, but there was already a cult studies, “he said later in an interview with writer Amy Rafael.

After joining to make the movie, Boyle visited Thailand, Australia, Malaysia and the Philippines with producer Andrew McDonald and screenwriter John Hodge (whom he had made with TrainspottingHis striking debut since 1994 Graveand the unfortunate, American A life less ordinary). The goal? To find the perfect place for the movie’s central beach. “It wasn’t quite the same as being a student who took a year,” Boyle said. “Although we tried to spend as much money as possible and stayed in a place.” In the end, they decided to shoot in Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Le.

Boyle gave a copy of Garland’s novel to his regular host man Yuan McGregor – suggesting that he would be introduced as a leading character Richard – but the filmmakers realized that they needed a bigger star name to justify the necessary budget. Boyle still considers him a risky career: a significant photo of the studio (actually his first studio photo) with a mega -star. “Well, if I wanted to take as much risk as possible, I would do Trainspotting 2 “They asked me often enough,” Boyle told Time As early as 2000 (and 17 years before he actually made Trainspotting 2). “Beach It would be too easy with Ewan McGregor. “

Boyle informs McGregor that they instead go with DiCaprio, which led to a decade of a break between the director and the actor. “This is not just not getting this role,” McGregor said later. “It was [the way] It was processed, which was not very smart. He knocked me a little. “Later, Boyle will handle this, explaining,” Evan has the right to treat so better. “

Open image in a gallery

The processing of the English protagonist of the book as an American-and not only every American, but Leonardo DiCaprio-Rounds on Alarm Bells for the Hollywood-End of the Hollywood BeachS At one point, the 20th century offered a casting Will Smith who was in his Wild -west/Villannium phase. “Not that I don’t like him – I’m his fan,” Boyle explained at the time. “But I said,” Keep, Will Smith wanders on this beach? Let’s take this movie seriously. “

In the role of Discaprio was Robert Carlisle as the frightening Duffy, who passes on Richard’s beach map before opening his wrists, and Virginia Ledoen and Guillaume Guilies such as Francoise and Etienne, a French couple with whom Richard travels to the beach. Plus, there is Tilda Swinton as a leader on Sal beach, a quiet tyrannical matriarch.

Watch Apple TV+ Free for 7 Days

Only new subscribers. £ 8.99/MO. After a free trial. Plan an automatic renewal until they are canceled

Try free

Watch Apple TV+ Free for 7 Days

Only new subscribers. £ 8.99/MO. After a free trial. Plan an automatic renewal until they are canceled

Try free

Beach It’s not so much a story about Paradise lost, but for a paradise that is unstable. The beach community is looking at regular “tourists” in Thailand, but they are so much at the place, interested only by what they can take from it. With an increasing number of paradise seekers coming to a car beach, Richard stupidly duplicates and sharks and armed marijuana farmers who go around, all this is a bit of this Apocalypse nowS

For DiCaprio, the attractiveness of the movie was primary. “It is essentially about how the human animal is quite pre -programmed to destroy the natural order,” he told Rolling stoneS “[Richard is] Looking for paradise, but at every stage he destroys it, wanting more and wants to go to the edge with every experience. He is like today’s primate. “

Open image in a gallery

A complete year before the movie was released, reporters wrote about the proposed changes in history. There were rumors that Richard would die at the end (false); This Boyle had chosen a much less dark completion than the source material (true and the worst transgression of the film). It was also confirmed early that Richard would have a romance with Francoise. In the book, Richard is affected by a more interesting lust for Francoise, which remains unrequited. For the cynical eye, Leo reached Smooch Virginie Ledoyen similar to the shallow Hollywood formula in action. In fact, it was Boyle’s decision.

“In the book he is so British,” Boyle said during an interview of 2000. “He just continues to watch this French girl and think how beautiful he was and he never tells her … The first thing we decided was : “Well, we have to get rid of it. He has to achieve it with the French girl – this is a movie for Christ, everything is about contact. “” It’s true, without pressure from a studio. In fact, DiCaprio keeps the waters. If Boyle needed reflexes, Leo would use his swing to arrange it.

At that time, DiCaprio’s star made him subjected to intense print control. There were titles on battles with a bar, alleged drugs and various sexual integrity-so many titles that he was forced to deny the stories while on promotional responsibilities for BeachS “Literally 95 percent of the s ** t that are there, there is a complete lie,” he said. Boyle saw first -hand the intensity of DiCaprio’s celebrity as they filmed in Thailand. The heads were reversed and Thai actors understood in his presence. “It was horrifying,” Boyle said. “It was like being with Jesus Christ.”

The oldest press was reserved for location damage. The crew removed the existing greenery, flattened dunes and planted palms of Ko Phi Phi Le – part of the Thai National Park – to make the beach look even more like a paradise. Fox guarantees that there is a beach return fund in its original state, and the crew cleared several tonnes of garbage left by previous tourists. But the protesters appeared during the photos, some bearing masks on DiCaprio’s face with bloody teeth. Boyle believes that protesters are jumping on DiCaprio’s celebrity to raise awareness of wider environmental problems. A lawsuit between environmentalists and Fox has been going on for years. After almost two decades of film tourism, the beach in Ko Phi Phi Le was closed between 2018 and 2022, before reoping to tourists under strict new rules: no boats, no swimming and only one hour on the beach per person.

Open image in a gallery

Later Boyle admitted that he was out of his comfort zone with Beach – He is much more in tune with the energy of cities – and realized that he did not sympathize with the characters. “I don’t like these people very much and I don’t approve of what they do,” Boyle said. The experience was also colored by a series of accidents. DiCaprio was poorly stung in the waters infected with jellyfish, and-if it was not the safety measures of the Dikaprio and Icene gaffer and Icene could be electric when the light of the crane was immersed in the pool in which they were shooting underwater scenes. In another incident, DiCaprio and Swinton were in a boat that was overcome by a change of tides, punching them other members of the cast in dangerous waters. Elsewhere, Boyle and his location team crashed into a mountain. “We called the police and they told us to give up,” he recalled. They had to feel the way down in the dark, only with a mobile phone (around 1999) for light.

However, all the problems of the movie are a misconception Beach Flop – probably triggered by his cool reviews (“Not a terrible movie, just insignificant,” went The New York Times) And the youngest nomination for the Razzie actor for Dicaprio. Actually, Beach Made over $ 140 million (112 million pounds).

Today, just as the beach occupants are isolated in their balloon paradise, Beach It seems to exist far beyond but some time and place. If Leo finding the beach for the first time – the sound of the “porcelain” of Moby – does not put you right there or synthesizer of the “clean shores” on the “clean shores” of All Saints, you must have spent the millennium of the millennium, you have spent The millennium years hidden from civilization.

The “beach” flows to Disney+