The animals from Nim’s Island

Think of animal sidekicks in films and chances are you’re musing on a furry, four-legged friend. From Lassie, the collie dog that never let you down to Will Smith’s , Sam, in I Am Legend, man’s best friend has often hogged the cinematic limelight. But that’s most definitely not the case in Nim’s Island, a family adventure film starring Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster and Gerard Butler based on the popular novel by Wendy Orr. As the central character, Nim, Breslin inhabits an exotic island paradise with her scientist father (Butler) where her days are full of energetic escapades and whimsical wonder. Here there is no place for cohorts as humdrum and ordinary as dogs, rather Nim’s chums include a sea lion, a bearded dragon and a pelican.

Selkie the sea lion is Nim’s closest companion and was played by two adult Australian sea lions, Spud and Friday from Australia’s Sea World. Two were chosen in case one was ever too uncooperative to work, and the movie’s animal trainers, John Medlin and Katie Brock, soon set about teaching the pair of 400 pound co-stars how to perform onscreen. “The hardest thing for Spud and Friday was that they are used to working one-on-one very closely with their trainers,” explained Brock, whose credits include Babe: Pig in the City. “But now they had to learn to work at a distance while on camera, which wasn’t easy.” Medlin adds: “They also had to get used to working with all the cameras and lights and a crew surrounding them, something sea lions aren’t exactly used to.”

The relationship between Selkie and Nim is a vital ingredient in the tropical cocktail of the film and the trainers knew that bonds between Abigail Breslin and the two sea lions would prove essential. “We started building their rapport from the very beginning,” revealed Brock. “We had her [Breslin] feeding them and petting them every day before production even began.” This attention to detail clearly paid off and soon close relationships were forged. “Whenever Abigail would walk in the room, the sea lions would just run up and give her a kiss,” says Levin. “They developed a beautiful relationship with Abigail and we were able to capture that in the movie.”

Disproving part of the old adage about working with animals, the sea lions soon earned the professional respect of their colleagues. On Spud and Friday, the film’s writer/ producer Paula Mazur admitted: “At first we weren’t sure how much they could do, but when Katie [Brock] showed us what they were capable of, we went back to the script and started injecting even more interaction with Selkie. They… were just brilliant, and so much easier to work with than we ever imagined.”

Another close compatriot in Nim’s veritable zoo is Fred the bearded dragon. Named after the expandable pouch that hangs from their jaws, resembling a beard, these Australian lizards are often kept as pets, such is their trusting and docile nature. Brought in to play Fred were five bearded dragons – Steve, Crusher, Goblet, Alice and Calico, though Abigail Breslin explained that there was a definite acting hierarchy: “We used Steve most of the time because he would do anything,” explained the young Oscar-nominated star. “But if he started to get a bit too active we’d bring in Goblet, then Calico, then Alice, then Crusher. That was our plan.” And despite the five available options, the film’s writer/ director, Jennifer Flackett, often despaired of the bearded dragons. “Lizards are real straight men. They don’t give you a lot in terms of acting range,” she joked.

A number of trained birds provided Nim with her feathered friend, Galileo the pelican. Also from Sea World, these were “quite odd” according to Mazur, who formerly worked on Aussie soap, Neighbours. “The casting session for the pelicans was the strangest I’ve ever had in my life,” she mused. “We all stood in a big circle and out marched all these pelicans and we stood there saying things like “I like the way that one cocks its head.”“

Sadly, it wasn’t possible for the film crew to include real sea turtles in the production, due to their status as endangered species, meaning that all onscreen turtles were animatronics. Similarly, a few scenes were too risky for the sea lions and so stand-in versions of these were also created.

This didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the book’s author Wendy Orr, who was amazed at the animals on show in the adaptation of her novel. Brock recounts the writer’s set visit: “When Wendy came to the set and met the sea lions, she just started crying. She said, “I can’t believe you’ve actually brought these animal characters life; I never dreamed that sea lions could really do what I wrote in the book!” So we were very proud of them.”