The beautiful friendship behind Penguin Bloom

Have you seen Penguin Bloom yet? The heart warming Aussie movie stars Naomi Watts as Sam Bloom, who became completely paralysed from the chest down after falling from a balcony during a family holiday in Thailand. She fought back with the help of an unlikely hero: an injured baby magpie called Penguin.

Sam (above, right) spoken to Prevention in 2018, noting: “As a mother it was such a relief when this tiny, wobbly bird came into our lives because she gave my three boys – Rueben, then 10, Noah, 9, and Oli, 7 – a reason to smile again.

“She was cute and fluffy and shifted some of the focus from me. She brought a lightness and joy back into our home, which we so desperately needed as a family.”

Sam’s photographer husband Cameron took about 14,000 images of Penguin, which became a best-selling book called Penguin Bloom: The odd little bird who saved a family. When Naomi read the book she was eager to star in the movie.

“I read it on a Sunday morning with my kids in bed leafing through the pages and being completely drawn in by these beautiful images of this creature, this little tiny bird. I just felt really drawn in by this moment and I saw the magic of this bird creating the unity and the repair of one's hope," she told The Hollywood Reporter.

When Naomi and Sam met, they immediately started to form an incredible bond. The pair had breakfast together at a hotel on the Sydney Harbour, then went for a walk and talked about the possibilities of where they could go with the story.

Naomi recently shared an image on Instagram of their first day together (above), saying: “Thank you @samjbloom for sharing your story with me and the world. Such an honour. I love you.”

She reveals she was drawn to Sam, who is one of the “most extraordinary” people she knows.

“She is a survivor and an inspiration to all,” the actress noted on Instagram. “It was a complete privilege being part of her story."

Naomi told Yahoo News she believes the secret to the strength of her bond with Sam was "trust".

“Naomi, you're so down-to-earth,” Sam added. “You're compassionate, and you have a big heart. You make people feel completely comfortable. You're a beautiful person, inside and out.”

The movie was actually filmed in the Bloom family’s house on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, with Sam allowing Naomi to read her private, painfully honest diaries, plus also being on set to provide guidance on the physical aspects of her portrayal.

Prior to Naomi arriving in Australia, Sam sent her video footage of herself transferring from her bed to a chair so she could learn to manoeuvre herself in an authentic way.

“I practiced with a wheelchair in my apartment," Naomi recalls. "It's hard when gravity is involved. Instinctively, no matter how forceful you are with your mind to tell that part of your body to switch off, it's almost impossible. We had to shoot these scenes over and over again, many takes, and it got to the point where I asked Sam to come to the set because I couldn't tell what I was doing wrong.”

The actress told Sunrise how important it was to her that Sam loved the movie: "Sam is someone who's suffered a lot, deeply, and so I just wanted to do the right thing by her. I was nervous but she couldn't have been more generous, and it was a beautiful friendship that formed between us."

Naomi also admitted she was scared of magpies before filming, but became very comfortable with them during the course of making the movie.

“I had been [swooped] on a horse ride in the forest once, when I was much younger, so I was quite terrified of them – I didn’t know how this would work,” she told 2GB.