From Mumbai slums to Oscars, here’s Sunny Pawar's incredible journey
Sunny Pawar from Mumbai slums to being Hollywood’s darling and literally stealing the show.
FollowOn Oscars' red carpet, celebrities like Andrew Garfield, Samuel L. Jackson, Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman and others were seen clicking selfies with the little hero. American model and singer John Legend's wife, Christine Teigen, also met the young actor and greeted him with a warm hug.
Later, during the event, host Jimmy Kimmel walked towards Sunny and started interviewing him Though Sunny could barely speak English, his cuteness and the charismatic presence more than made up for the communication shortcomings. Kimmel recreated the famous Lion King scene with Sunny as Simba, picking up Sunny in his arms.
Check out the video showing Jimmy as Rafiki holding up Sunny as Simba:
Sunny played the role of Saroo Brierley, the younger version of Dev Patel in the movie Lion. The movie is the true story of an adolescent who is separated from his family and later gets adopted by an Australian family. He is later sgown using Google Earth to find his parents.
Sunny is studying in the third standard at Air India Model School, and is said to be excellent in studies. He lives with his parents in a slum in Kalina, the western suburbs near the Mumbai airport. He lives with his father Dilip Pawar, a former government office sweeper, and mother Vasu who is a home-maker.
According to reports, Sunny was selected from around 2,000 talented children all over India. In the final auditions held in Mumbai and Pune one-and-half year ago, Sunny nailed the auditions like a pro.
Reportedly, the film director, Garth Davis had to put in a lot of efforts with Sunny during the shooting in India and Australia.
The director used sign language to make Sunny understand the dialogues, enact sad or emotional scenes.
In an interview with Daily Telegraph, actor Dev Patel talked about Sunny, "He’s our little mascot on this movie. For Sunny, he’d never been on a flight before or seen a Hollywood film, and now he’s leading this big movie. He’s so innocent and that’s why you get such a brilliant performance from him. He’s just really enjoying it."
Besides acting, Sunny wants to become an IPS officer and join the Mumbai Police. He also loves WWE and is very keen on attending a match soon; he recently met Dwayne Johnson and clicked a selfie.
Now, Sunny has become the favourite child star of the awards season. Post, the success of Lion, his other film Love Sonia featuring Sunny and Frieda Pinto is ready for release later this year.
