Sunny Pawar

Between rubbing shoulders with Hollywood superstars and invitations to lunch with politicians in his home country of India, it’s increasingly hard to remember that Sunny Parwar, breakout star of the multi award-winning hit Lion, is just 8 years old. After returning to a hero’s welcome in his home city of Mumbai after the Oscars, the future looks bright for Sunny; with dreams of playing a superhero at some point in his undoubtedly successful career, it won’t be long before Marvel come calling – at least if his performance at the Oscars was anything to go by. Pawar won the Jury Grand Prize for Best Performance by an Actor at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2016, followed by the Online Film & Television award for Best Youth Performance. Not speaking English, Pawar learned all of his lines in Lion phonetically, syllable by syllable. He was selected for the role from over 2,000 potential young actors, although according to director Garth Davis, “As soon as I saw him, he just felt like the kid that I’d been imagining.” Aside from stealing the show in Lion, Sunny also repeated his performance at the Oscars 2017, becoming the indisputable star of the annual event.

Quotes and Praise

“Being an actor is a privilege and I’m blessed.” [My favorite movie] is this Bollywood movie called Krrish and the star Hrithik Roshan is my favourite. That’s a superhero movie so hopefully someday I will be able to play a superhero. If not an actor, I would love to be a police officer. I’d like to be a cop in Mumbai, in my city.”