During this time his company featured the work of such actors, writers, directors, producers, cinematographers and musicians as John Hurt, Ray Winstone, Dame Helen Mirren, Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry, Michael Tolkin, Jeremy Thomas, Sarah Radclyffe, Bridget Fonda, Kathy Burke, The Edge, and The Sex Pistols.
[13] Boyd moved to Hollywood in the early 1980s for a two-year period, where he worked at both Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios and produced John Schlesinger's 1981 $24 million comedy Honky Tonk Freeway.
Boyd returned to the UK in 1982 and attempted to resume his directorial career with Gossip, which was to be a satire on celebrity life in the early Thatcher years based on an original treatment by Frances Lynn.
By 1992 he was financially wiped out ...In 1987 Boyd produced the multi-directorial opera film Aria which featured segments by Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, Bill Bryden, Jean-Luc Godard, Derek Jarman, Franc Roddam, Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Charles Sturridge and Julien Temple.
Boyd had earlier donated his personal and business papers documenting his 30-year film career at that point to the university's Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (CIR).
[29][31] He has presented a series of In Conversation events at the CIR with prominent cultural figures such as Mike Leigh, Nicolas Roeg, and the Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, lectures at least three times annually and was instrumental in the university's academic relationship with the London Film School.
In 2018 he initiated a series of Creative Dialogues at Exeter University with celebrated figures in the cultural arena - the first two, conducted by Boyd, were in depth conversations with the film star Charles Dance and the former editor of Vogue Alexandra Shulman.
Featured in over 400 professionally produced videos is the work and contributions of scores of internationally recognised authors, actors, conductors, artists, directors, dancers, choreographers, poets, singers, musicians and curators.
[7] Boyd contributes to The Guardian newspaper, Time Out and The Observer where his personal opinions as an informed insider have been balanced publicly with his championship of indigenous British cinema.
[32] In 2006, in his role as the guest editor of the Directors Guild of Great Britain's annual magazine Direct, he persuaded 22 film-makers including Stephen Frears, Hanif Kureishi, Terence Davies and Charles Dance to contribute articles and interviews to help consolidate the profile and public status of the unique pool of directorial talent in the United Kingdom.
[33] His wife Hilary, a granddaughter of the late Frederick Marquis, 1st Earl of Woolton, has also published fiction; her debut novel, Thursdays in the Park (2011), reached the top spot in the Amazon bestseller chart.