Australian director Warwick Thorton returns after his critically acclaimed film Samson & Delilah, which won the best debut award at Cannes and has charted the trajectory of his latest film The new boy. Thorton’s film The new boy is about a nine-year-old orphaned Aboriginal boy who arrives in the middle of the night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun. The boy’s presence disrupts the balance of the spiritual and survival struggles.
Thornton talks about how he revisited his story The new boy and its long development process.
History is like an old bottle of wine, it was a bit bitter at first and just needed to age and mature.
Thronton wrote the script when he was young, but took time to let it mature with him to tell the story he wanted. Along with the new development of the script, Sister Eileen played Cate Blanchett added to the post of Priest. Blanchett explained how she got into the script because she admired Thornton’s work and wanted to explore different themes together. When the pandemic hit, Blanchett took advantage of Zoom and had several conversations with Thornton discussing the role of Sister Eileen. “Changing the gender of my character from priest to Sister Eileen opened up that side of the story in an interesting way,” Cate Blanchett says in an interview with Deadline.
Having Cate Blanchett take on the role of Sister Eileen allowed for new themes revolving around indigenous religion and spirituality that Warwick Thornton took the opportunity to explore The new boy.
“Falls down a lot. Unapologetic alcohol guru. Travel specialist. Amateur beer trailblazer. Award-winning tv advocate. Hipster-friendly twitter aficionado”