Film Courage: Saroo, from the beginning of when you wrote your book [A Long Way Home:
A Memoir] until now, how long of a process was this?
Saroo Brierley: 2012?
April I think?
So this is 2017, so four years?
Four and a half years.
But it took me a year to write the book.
So I was pretty fast.
Film Courage: Okay.
And then how did you present the book for adaption for [screenwriter] Luke (Davies)
to write it?
Or how did that whole process turn out.
Saroo Brierley: The process was Luke read the book and then I said to Cecil Films and
then I said I’ve got to get Luke to India and take him through the journey that I went
through and I thought that would give him another dimension of feel and atmosphere that
you would sort of get from reading a book so and I wanted to take him back from right
where it started.
Do the train journey and all the places that I went to.
And then come to Australia and see if it rings true as well.
Because I think if I didn’t do that, it wouldn't have had clarity.
It wouldn't be sort of as clean and it would really sort of help him in terms of writing
the script.
Film Courage: For me LION has been my favorite narrative film for the year and I’m not
just saying this because you’re in front of me here.
I’m really excited to tell others about it and I have.
The whole package is beautiful with the music and everything.
For you, I’m wondering what is an inspiring film that has touched your life as LION has
touched mine.
It can be from any year.
It does’t have to be this one [2016-17]?
Saroo Brierley: It’s very relevant actually to LION and it’s this other movie.
It’s called the JOY LUCK CLUB.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?
Particularly, where the mother and the children meet in the room there…..and at the end
of the movie, I meet my mother and it’s very touching to me.
I have a very soft spot for that movie.
But it’s an amazing movie that I saw at a young age and remember it still to this
day.
Film Courage: So when you saw that film and you began working with Luke Davies on the
screenplay [for LION], did you want people to come away with the same feeling, or a similar
feeling, or really because it was about your life you were not able to remove yourself?
Since that movie impacted you, did you want others to be impacted, as well?
Film Courage: Well of course I would have.
That was up to Luke to make that variation of that certain situation with Garth to make
it come alive so I guess that’s such a pivotal point in the movie as well that particular
bit, reuniting together mother and son.
I think that the way Luke has done it is really, really amazing and really wanted to get down
to the grass roots and more particularly that sort of scene because apparently that was
the first scene shot and I couldn’t believe it when he told me.
But a lot of people were particularly enthralled with this scene because it would resonate
with a lot of people especially mothers and people who have lost their mothers as well.
But I think that it touches me overtime that I see it.
Film Courage: What book for you has been instrumental in the creative process, in writing for you.
What book [can you recommend] on writing, creativity?
Saroo Brierley: That’s a hard one because I’ve only been really reading magazines
and comics and sometimes reading Mum’s beauty magazines, Cosmopolitan and a few others but
I’m a first time author and I’ve never written a book.
And I went from being into industrial retail sales to just landing in this…to just doing
this journey but all the sudden becoming an author and having been asked to write my memoir.
Film Courage: And I understand you are working with your Mom on a second book.
Is that right?
Saroo Brierley: How did you know?
Film Courage: I heard it in another video…A little birdie told me.
Saroo Brierley: Yeah…we are.
We’re about to start the prequel to LION or A LONG WAY HOME.
Which doesn't really have to do so much with me but coming to the point just prior to me
which has mostly to do with mothers, my adopted mother and my biological.
And also one more lady which is Saroj Sood who owns the orphanage and how those women
are all interrelated.
And all for the one cause, the humanitarian side to help others that are more in need.
And I’m just getting goose bumps just talking about it.
It is so unique to have women from oceans apart from different backgrounds all wanting
to do one thing and that is to help a child and to give him or her another chance of life.
Saroo Brierley: Well I could stay here all night and talk with you but I know you have
to go.
But last question and that is for people of an adult age who have a childhood that either
they don’t remember or there are lots of unanswered questions and they’re adults.
What would you recommend to them about either going home or trying to find out more about
their own history so that they know who they are, [and have] a sense of themselves?
Saroo Brierley: I’m not too sure but for me it was finding closure.
And for them I think it was about listening to your heart and listening to your dreams
really.
Because that is what it was for me.
In a nutshell, encapsulated.
And if they are longing for something that has been lost for such a long time and it’s
such a weight on their shoulders then they ought to pursue it.
Because life is a little bit difficult when you don’t know your identity and you don’t
know your past because…but give it a valiant attempt and at least try to get answers and
closure to something that you can’t get answers to because if you don’t try then
you don’t know.
Film Courage: Well thank you and good luck tonight, Saroo!
Saroo Brierley: Thank you!