STACK #198 Apr 2021

FILM FEATURE

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LOCAL STARS IN BLOOM NaomiWatts and JackiWeaver couldn’t help but be moved by the incredible true story of Samantha Bloom and her magpie pal, Penguin Bloom. Words Gill Pringle

NaomiWatts and Sam Bloom

As a professional photographer, Cameron Bloom’s Instagram stories and subsequent book about their new feathered housemate became an instant hit, documenting how the inspirational Penguin enabled his wife’s recovery from the depths of depression. When news networks got hold of the story, things “started getting a bit crazy,” Sam Bloom tells us. “I’d go to the shops

and people would come up and go, ‘Are you Penguin’s mum?’

I thought it was nice. It didn’t bother me at all

because people were so lovely.” Sam adds that she wanted the movie to be “real and honest” and is pleased that it turned out that way. “I didn’t want it to be all happy, pretending that everything’s great because that’s not how I feel. Yes, it gets better, but it will always be a bit of a struggle.”

A surf-loving Sydney mum-of-three, Samantha Bloom had spiraled into a deep depression following a tragic accident in 2013 which robbed her of the use of her legs, only to have an injured baby magpie named Penguin lift her spirits in a surprising way. Inspired by her new feathered friend, reliably perched on her shoulder, Sam’s life took on new trajectories: taking up competitive paracanoeing, eventually placing 13th in the world, and bringing home gold from the World Adaptive Surfing Championships.

With Sam’s story now adapted into a powerful drama, Penguin

Bloom , Naomi Watts immediately signed on to play Sam Bloom with Jacki Weaver portraying her mum, Jan. But neither was happy to find themselves working with wild birds – a necessity when the movie takes its name from Sam’s saviour, magpie Penguin Bloom. Using multiple magpies across different age groups, Watts would become second fiddle to her feathered co-stars, patiently waiting for hours for the birds to take their cue. “I love nature and animals, but I was a bit concerned at the beginning,” Watts tells STACK , chatting from her home in New York. “I should have had more time with the birds in the lead-up but, for whatever reason, there wasn’t enough time. “So, on the first day, I remember the bird crawling all over me and I just thought, ‘Oh my god, I hope my eyes don’t get pecked out.' “I just had to learn to get comfy, although there was bit of an ice-breaker on the first day when the bird basically pooped on my head and it ran all the way down my face. One way to break the ice,” laughs the twice Oscar-nominated actress who also served as a producer on the film. Jacki Weaver is less charitable: “To be honest, I think magpies are horrible. I hate magpies. They used to attack children on their way to school, that’s why we used to wear hats to school in the bush because they’re nasty things. Fortunately I was only in scenes with them a few times, but I was still terrified,” she admits. “The patience of the trainer and our director, Glendyn Ivin, was amazing.” Preparing for what she knew would be a difficult role – spent almost entirely

in a wheelchair – Watts was amazed when Sam Bloom decided to share her private diaries with her. “I was incredibly grateful because I knew that it was so personal. Firstly, the act of generosity to be that available and open and, secondly, I knew that she was going to go really deep. “We’d spent a fair amount of time together but now it was time to get really into the depths of her darkness, and indeed it was all there on the page. It was heart-wrenching, but I already knew that that’s what Sam had been going through. She’d certainly intimated that much, but to see it written out in her words over and over again repeatedly, how really truly unhappy she was and how she couldn’t get through days on end; she wanted to not be there anymore. It was intense,” says Watts. Weaver didn’t get to meet Bloom’s mum,

Jan, until she was already filming. “By then I already had a handle on who she was, because it was a very good script. So, when I did meet her, I was pleased to see I wasn’t going completely in the wrong direction. “That is something you have to bear in mind when you’re playing a real person. You don’t want to get it really wrong and hurt their feelings.”

• Penguin Bloom is out April 21

JackiWeaver and NaomiWatts

14 APRIL 2021

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