Helen Prejean her best-selling book, "Dead Man Walking" (1993), based on her experiences with two convicts on Death Row for whom she served as spiritual adviser before their executions. In her book, she explored the effects of the death penalty on everyone involved. The book was adapted as a 1995 film of the same name, starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. It was also adapted as an opera, first produced in 2000 by the San Francisco Opera. Helen Prejean was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the daughter of Augusta Mae (née Bourg; 1911–1993), a nurse, and Louis Sebastian Prejean (1893–1974), a lawyer.
Susan Sarandon member of the Jury for the NYICFF, a local New York City Film Festival dedicated to screening films made for children between the ages of 3 and 18. Sarandon joined the cast of the adaptation of "The Lovely Bones", opposite Rachel Weisz, and appeared with her daughter, Eva Amurri, in "Middle of Nowhere"; both films were made in 2007. In June 2010, Sarandon joined the cast of the HBO pilot "The Miraculous Year", as Patty Atwood, a Broadway director/choreographer. However, the series was not picked up. In 2012, Sarandon's audiobook performance of Carson McCullers' "The Member of the Wedding" was