Author Trent Dalton takes us behind the scenes for a look at the process of bringing his best-selling book Boy Swallows Universe to life. Only on Netflix January 11, 2024.
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00:00 Boy Swallows Universe, the whole double meaning of that is you swallow the good stuff and
00:05 you swallow the bad stuff and then you've got to spit it out as fireworks.
00:09 So I swallowed that story for 20 years.
00:11 The minute I spat that fear out in the form of a 400 page book, the universe came back
00:16 to me and said, "This is why you're here."
00:19 I got a phone call from the publishers at HarperCollins to say, "We've had some serious
00:26 interest in this book."
00:27 They said, "Trent, would you be able to come to Sydney and have coffee with Joel Edgerton?"
00:34 This guy says, "I've read your book and I'm really interested in turning it into a massive
00:40 series like something epic, something that Australia has never seen before and maybe
00:44 the world's never seen before."
00:45 He knew where it was coming from and he knew about brotherhood and the power of family
00:49 and the power of love to overcome anything.
00:52 These are the things we were talking about.
00:54 After this two hour coffee, he goes, "Now you need a lift to the airport."
00:58 And I remember opening the door and across the top of the car, he's into the driver's
01:03 side.
01:04 I said, "It's yours.
01:05 It's yours, Joel.
01:06 If you want it, it's yours."
01:07 We didn't want to make something that was really grim without shirking away from those
01:11 key themes.
01:12 From the production design to the colour palette to the costuming to the actual casting, everything
01:17 sort of pops.
01:18 It's like, how do you take this dark journey and make it hopeful?
01:22 Trent Dalton is our North Star.
01:24 If we can capture 10% of his hope and his joy and his light, we have a fantastic TV
01:30 show.
01:31 What's so exciting about this project is that it is quintessentially Australian of a certain
01:36 period in a certain part of Australia.
01:39 In real life, in the mid-1980s, my brother's tapping me on the shoulder and they say, "Trent,
01:43 we've found something."
01:44 My brother puts a wood panel to the side and finds a secret hole and there's nothing in
01:48 that hole but a rotary dial red telephone.
01:51 The universe opened up for me.
01:53 That's when I realised the adults aren't telling you everything.
01:56 There are things about this world that are dark and a little bit scary and really wondrous
02:02 as well.
02:03 My name is Felix Cameron and I'm playing Eli Bell in Boys' World Universe.
02:13 You are my hero.
02:15 Suffering for your acting.
02:17 You're amazing.
02:18 Eli is an absolute avatar for me.
02:21 So anything that kid does, I either probably did it or I wanted to do it.
02:25 Come on out.
02:26 Back off.
02:27 You're going to give us a flogging.
02:28 You're fucking right I am, mate.
02:29 Oh, fuck that then.
02:30 Don't swear.
02:31 You just did.
02:32 Yeah, well, I'm an adult, aren't I?
02:34 Trent's life, it was on the way to a very dark life and you've got to be reminded that
02:39 the human spirit sometimes is greater than all the sum around it.
02:43 It was pretty amazing when Trent walked on set.
02:46 Beautiful reaction that he had.
02:47 He got quite emotional because we were more or less recreating his childhood, I think
02:53 down to the school uniforms that the boys were wearing.
02:56 I think being a kid of the 70s and 80s, there was a bit more simplicity that we lived.
03:03 I think there was a lot of distractions that we didn't have that kids have today.
03:07 People use that term coming of age.
03:10 Straight away we think of coming of age in sort of teenage years.
03:15 There's an argument to be made that a lot of the characters are coming of age.
03:19 It's all right, sir.
03:20 I stepped up to make a drug deal.
03:21 You're starting to piss me off, mate.
03:22 All right, come on.
03:30 You really do feel like you're being transported into another world.
03:33 My first day was at the Courier Mail.
03:36 Typewriters, old 80s phones, so you really feel like you're in it.
03:43 You're in it.
03:43 There's stuff in here that just kind of instantly takes you back to fashion.
03:56 You know now why it doesn't get a replay.
04:00 Stop that crying.
04:02 Crying.
04:03 I don't even know if I told Trent this or not, but I found this interview with him.
04:16 He said that the reason he wrote this story was he was sitting with his mum and his little
04:21 girls.
04:22 His mum said, "I wouldn't change anything because it led me to this moment."
04:26 Seeing my granddaughters playing in the sun and this take a line out of the show, it gets
04:32 so good.
04:33 You'll forget that it was ever bad.
04:36 Family doesn't necessarily have to be functional.
04:41 This functional family can still possess enormous amounts of love.
04:44 [Music]
04:48 [Applause]
04:51 [Music]
04:54 [Applause]
04:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]