Danny Boyle ‘turned down knighthood’

Boyle, 56, was in line for the New Year Honours list for his work in masterminding London’s much acclaimed £27 million Olympic opening ceremony.

However, he said he would not have felt right accepting an individual award as the ceremony’s artistic director when a cast of thousands, including a Queen Elizabeth lookalike being parachuted out of a helicopter, helped create it.

“It’s just not me. I also thought it was wrong, actually,” he said. “You can make these speeches about ‘this is everybody’s work, blah, blah, blah’. And you’ve got to mean it, and I did mean it, and it’s the only way you can carry on something like that – through the efforts of all the people.”

The director also said he was working on a “loose” first draft based on Irvine Welsh’s novel Porno, his sequel to Trainspotting.

He said: “I’d love that to happen. To get them back, Likely Lads-style, 20 years later, carrying that experience as characters.”