‘Lion’ finds its way home
They bring a story of true inspiration to the big screen
Film follows one boy’s journey from India to Australia and back
LOS ANGELES The inspiring Lion requires two actors to tell the incredible true story of Saroo Brierley.
Hindi-speaking Sunny Pawar, 8, makes his screen debut in the drama (in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles; opens in additional cities Dec. 9; expands nationwide Dec. 25), which depicts Brierley’s early poverty-filled life in India.
Slumdog Millionaire actor Dev Patel, 26, plays the grown Brierley, an adult living a world away in Tasmania, Australia, who begins a heroic search for the home he lost as a child.
“Saroo has gone through so many transformations in his life. You see it onscreen,” Patel says. “The thing that ties it all together is that drive throughout Saroo’s life, this ferocious drive.”
Born in the central Indian town of Khandwa, Brierley lost all contact with his family at age 5 after winding up on a train bound for Kolkata. He survived alone on the city’s dangerous streets, was placed in an orphanage and eventually was adopted by a loving Australian family, the Brierleys.
After a comfortable upbringing, Brierley — by that time a university student — began an obsessive, painstaking search for his original home, using the emerging Google Earth satellite technology. In 2012, 25 years after his separation, Brierley emotionally reunited with his town and his birth mother, telling the tale in a 2013 memoir, A Long
Way Home, the basis for Lion. Sitting next to Patel after enthusiastic applause at an early screening, Brierley, 35, can only shake his head at his journey.
“I was so elated, and then things became so expedited. From the book to appearing on
60 Minutes and the media, then a film. I haven’t even really processed what has happened,” Brierley says. “It almost feels sort of fictional, not factual.”
Patel read about Brierley’s ex- traordinary story and began campaigning director Garth Davis to let him be part of the planned movie even before a script existed.
“I thought, this story is insane. It’s such a powerful feat of humanity what Saroo has achieved,” Patel says. “I thought, ‘God, if I could just have the opportunity.’ ”
Dave Karger, special correspondent for movie site IMDb.com, says Patel is a “shoo-in” for a supporting-actor Oscar nomination for his “emotional performance.” Patel says he had to “jump through hoops” to get the part, including Skype calls, lengthy taped tryouts and a six- hour audition in London.
“I really had to fight for this,” he says. “My Slumdog role was actually working against me. They wanted someone fresh. I was like, ‘I’m hungry and willing to work hard.’ ”
Patel got the nod, polished his Australian accent and bulked up to play the athletic Brierley. The two met at a Tasmanian cafe for breakfast, and “we just clicked,” Brierley says. They drove together to a cookout for Brierley’s family and the corresponding Lion actors portraying them — including Saroo’s Australian mother, Sue, and her acting counterpart, Nicole Kidman.
Brierley met young Pawar, then 6, who was found in a school for disadvantaged children during an India-wide casting search.
“I was looking at him thinking: ‘I used to be like him once. And he is going to be playing that person,” Brierley says. “I was hoping he could do it justice. And he has. Everyone has in this movie.”