Lion: Nicole Kidman, Hobart mum Sue Brierley bond over adoption in adaption of son's story

By Tracy Bowden

When Sue Brierley discovered her son’s remarkable true-life story was going to be made into a film, she knew immediately who she wanted to play her — Australian actor Nicole Kidman.

“Well I instantly thought of Nicole. I mean why wouldn’t I? She’s Australian,” Ms Brierley said.

“We’ve got the same colouring,” Kidman added.

Ms Brierley said: “Not even so much visually, but just in a similar place, I think. With your children being adopted, it was important to me that someone be on my page.”

When Kidman read the script she felt a similar connection to Ms Brierley.

“I think it was just meant to be, it was mapped out in the stars, so to speak,” Kidman said.

Kidman and Ms Brierley spoke to the ABC’s 7.30 program ahead of the Australian premiere of the movie Lion in Sydney.

The film tells the story of Saroo, who at the age of five became lost in his native India and was later adopted by a couple from Hobart, played in the film by Kidman and David Wenham.

Twenty-five years later Saroo, played by Dev Patel, used Google Earth to search for his hometown and his mother.

Last week Kidman was nominated for best supporting actress at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for her role.

Bonding over adoption

Kidman said she felt a connection with Ms Brierley the first time they met.

“She came up to Sydney and we just sat in my apartment … and just started talking and I told her a lot about myself, and it was almost like she already knew a lot, and not stuff I had talked about publicly, but just sensations and feelings,” Kidman said.

“We’d both had a tough patch,” Ms Brierley said. “Because I lost my mother, and your father passed away, really within one month, so we were rather raw emotionally at that time.”

Kidman said that being an adoptive parent helped her understand Ms Brierley’s experiences.

“We have similar ways in which we wanted to adopt,” Kidman said.

“I just felt ever since I was young that I was going to adopt a child. Mine wasn’t the vision Sue had exactly, but pretty similar, and we both made it happen and that is weird to have the same thing.”

‘We did have a lot of tears’

Kidman said there were special challenges in portraying a real person, but Ms Brierley became one of her greatest supporters.

“I said, ‘Oh please, don’t have Sue on the set watching the scenes … I so just wanted to create the truth of who she is, which is obviously very special, and I didn’t know if I would be able to capture that,” she said.

Ms Brierley did visit the set to comfort the actor after filming some of the more emotional scenes.

“I was very caring and protective because I was worried about the trauma. There’s a lot of trauma,” Ms Brierley said.

And she had some advice for Kidman’s husband Keith Urban when he saw the film in New York.

“Keith is standing there with tears running down his face and he just said, ‘Oh babe, I didn’t know this was so tough for you.’ And I said, ‘Well make sure you look after her’.”

For Ms Brierley, seeing her life on the big screen was overwhelming.

“It shocked us when we first saw the edit. We had a group hug and stood there, all of us crying. It was tough. So we did have a lot of tears but I feel really that the film has honoured our story.”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.