Danny Boyle confirms Jack O'Connell's cult leader in '28 Years Later' was inspired by Jimmy Savile: a BBC star outed as a prolific sexual abuser
The character and his followers were inspired by the infamous British TV presenter, Jimmy Savile.
Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland told BI the character explores themes of selective memory.
Warning: Spoilers ahead for "28 Years Later."
As if living in the zombie-ridden, post-apocalyptic Britain of " 28 Years Later" wasn't traumatic enough, a strange cult leader is also in the mix. And he looks a bit familiar.
At the end of the film, its young protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams) is taken in by a new group of survivors led by a man who calls himself Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell). Between his name and his style — Crystal and his followers wear vibrant purple tracksuits, heavy gold jewelry, and have long blond hair — there's a striking resemblance to the notorious British media personality and sex offender, Jimmy Savile.
According to "28 Years Later" director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland, that's by design, and that reference hits on key themes of the film.
Savile, who began working for the BBC in the 1960s, was outed as a sexual abuser after his death in 2011, when hundreds of allegations were made against him and multiple inquests were carried out into his crimes.
It's unclear if in the world of the horror franchise, where the outbreak of the Rage Virus decimated the UK in 2002, Savile's crimes were ever revealed to the public or if he remained an icon celebrated for his eccentric television persona and fundraising efforts (he was given a knighthood for his charity work in 1990). Either way, O'Connell's character is meant to hit a nerve.
"He's as much to do with pop culture as he is to do with sportswear, to do with cricket, to do with the honors system," Boyle told Business Insider of Savile. "It's all kind of twisting in this partial remembrance, clinging onto things and then recreating them as an image for followers."
"He's a kaleidoscope, isn't he?" Garland added, referring to O'Connell's character. "A sort of trippy, fucked up kaleidoscope."
O'Connell's role will lend itself to bigger themes around selective memory in the upcoming sequel, "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple," which is out January 16, 2026.
Garland said that "The Bone Temple" — and ideally a third film in the "28 Years Later" trilogy, if Boyle gets it greenlit — focuses on how different groups try to construct a future based on what they do and don't remember about the past.
"The thing about looking back is how selective memory is," Garland said. "It cherry picks and it has amnesia, and crucially, it also misremembers. We are living in a time right now which is absolutely dominated by a misremembered past."
"28 Years Later" is in theaters now.
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