I'm starting to remember.
Saroo, our beautiful boy.
We're very proud of you son.
A life I had forgotten.
You okay?
I had another family.
A mother.
A brother.
I can still see their faces.
What happened?
The movie is "Lion".
It's an awards contender; highly acclaimed.
And in it, you're both played by Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman, respectively.
Did you get a chance to meet with them before the movie to, kind of, talk about what it's
like to act as you?
I met Dev.
I didn't know what I was going to be in for, because I've never sort of met a celebrity
before.
But when we met for breakfast it was just amazing because we didn't talk anything about
sort of movies or anything like that, it was just general life; sort of getting to know each other.
Even though he studied me for a long time; at least eight months of trying to perfect the Australian
accent and doing this whole thing of embodiment and exemplifying the "real Saroo".
But you know he's such an amazing character and so charismatic as well.
We just bounced off each other and I'm proud to say we became real long-term friends.
But he just does an amazing job in the film and kudos to him.
To begin with, I really always dreamt she would be my role.
Right.
When the film was done, I thought, "Well, you just had to pick her."
"It has to be Nicole."
An iconic Australian actress, so I also appreciated the fact that she wanted the role
when it was tabled in Cannes at the film festival, because a lot of dealing goes on with selections
of roles and so forth there.
And she said straight away, "I want that role.
I'll do whatever it takes, but I'm going to have that role."
And I really respected that because it's a fairly gruelling part to play, so you have
to be really committed to when it was tough, and yeah, she made every effort to meet me
prior to commencing the project.
She also sent her colleague to interview and tape me over a couple of days, so that was
pretty intense.
She needed that material to perfect being me; my accent and mannerisms.
I really respected the effort she put into that.
So, I couldn't be more happy.
She's an amazing woman.
Super intelligent.
And we really connected quite closely during this time.
Actually very closely and I consider her a soul-mate and she says the same of me.
On a personal level, is it bizarre, or is it illuminating, to see an actor portraying
you on screen?
How do you kind of view it from your very unique perspective?
Well, I don't have an opinion straight away except, "It's, like, amazing."
It sort of takes me a bit of time for the dust to settle and then I get an opinion.
But it's still quite fresh at the moment.
And there's so much things going on at the moment; everything's just expedited so quickly,
hence why I haven't really had time to critique, I guess, on that question.
But I'm sure, when I sort of do, and get a bit of R&R, I'll have time and say things
about it, but look, it's amazing what they're doing and I think kudos to everyone.
Look, for your family, it's an incredible version of a family photo album.
I think you're one of the few people in life to get something like this.