The Real-Life Subjects Of "Lion" Tell Us About Brekky With Dev Patel, Being "Soul-Mates" With Nicole Kidman

Imagine, for a moment, your life story is deemed interesting enough to be turned into a movie.

Then, imagine coming up with your dream cast, and seeing them fight for the privilege to play you.

And then, the flick becomes one of the most talked about motion pictures of the year and a serious contender for the Academy Awards.

Awesome, right? But also, in a way, a terrifying waking nightmare sure to shatter your nerves and destroy your sense of personal space?

That's precisely what happened to Saroo Brierley and his mother Sue, the real-life subjects of Lion.

(To their credit, they're handling all this intense attention very well.)

The film, in cinemas today, stars Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) as Saroo and Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman (sorry: "Our Nicole") as Sue.

As a five-year-old child in India, Saroo was separated from his birth mother and caught on a train that took him 1,600km from home.

Homeless until he was taken in by an orphanage, Saroo was eventually adopted by Tasmanian couple Sue and John Brierley.

It would only be decades later—with the advent of Google Earth—that Saroo could find his first home and discover the fate of his family.

Saroo and Sue swung by Student Edge earlier this week to talk about the surreal experience of seeing their story on the big screen, as well as their relationships with the famed actors who brought their tale to life.

For Saroo, he's "proud to say" Dev and he have become "real long-term friends," following their first meeting over brekky.

Sue's relationship with Nicole is even closer: "I consider her a soul-mate and she says the same of me."

Read our review of Lion.

You can also win a signed copy of Saroo's autobiography here.

Photo: Student Edge