'Lion' star Sunny Pawar returns home; meets Uddhav Thackeray

Mumbai: Child actor Sunny Pawar today met Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray after returning from the US where he attended the Oscar awards. The eight-year-old actor, who starred in Oscar-nominated film "Lion", won hearts at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

Sunny, along with his parents and a host of relatives, visited "Matoshree", the residence of the Thackeray family in suburban Bandra. Uddhav, along with his son Aditya and other members of the party, greeted Sunny and posed for pictures with the young star.

Sunny rose to global fame overnight with his Oscar- nominated film "Lion" starring Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman. He played the role of young Saroo Brierley in the Garth Davis-directed movie.

"Lion" is the true story of a young child who is separated from his family and later gets adopted by an Australian family. When he grows up, he uses Google Earth to find his real parents.

Sunny, a Class III student of Air Indian Model School at Kalina here, was selected after a nationwide talent-hunt around one-and-a-half years ago and cleared the auditions in Mumbai and Pune to land the plum role in the film.