Dev Patel took eight months to perfect an Australian accent for ‘Lion’.
The 26-year-old actor – who plays Saroo Brierley in the drama film – admits it was "a lot of effort" to nail the accent he needed to use in the movie.
He said: "A lot of effort is what it took. Eight months of effort in fact with the genius of a dialect coach from Sydney, Jenny Kent. I was really lucky that the production gave me that comfortable lead up to take that time to do that."
And Dev was honoured to work alongside Nicole Kidman, who plays his character’s adoptive mother in the film.
He added to news.com.au: "I feel Nicole just really opened up … for this one. She is such an icon and to have her in this movie takes it to another level.
"I have a mum who I am very close to and when I read this script I knew my mum would be really proud of it and she was a couple mess when she saw it."
It comes as Dev admitted he "cried" when he got the script for ‘Lion’.
He shared: "I was crying when I read the script and I haven’t done that before ever while I was reading something. You want to do justice to such a beautiful piece of work.
"It’s really easy to compare it to ‘Slumdog’ when you’re dealing with a young boy in a situation of poverty from the beginning, but apart from that, thematically and tonally, the films are completely different.
"’Slumdog’ had a kind of frenetic energy about it and a pacing, and this film is a sweeping story with these two pillars on each end, played by Priyanka [Bose] and Nicole [Kidman]."
Dev Patel’s accent struggle
