'Slumdog' scribe champions underdog

Beaufoy revives the working-class hero

By BOB VERINI

Though he is acing his appearance on "Who Wants to be a Millioniare?," the hero of "Slumdog Millionaire" is clearly an underdog. And that's why the film works, says scribe Simon Beaufoy.

"They're underrepresented in cinema," especially in his native U.K, says Beaufoy,.

"For a brief period there was such a thing as the working-class hero, but we've all become middle-class. We've written ourselves out, into a 'sophisticated' place." India, with its startling contrasts of wealth and poverty, offered a new approach.

"What's brilliant about India is that anything's possible. It's a young country, like America. I've got this naive optimism that the underdog can prevail and overcome, and transposing that to somewhere as uncynical and romantic as India gave me a whole new lease on life."