I’m in Hollywood

sked with anticipation on his face, momentarily relaxing under Eric's gentle encouragement.
At Eric's gesture, he even sat beside him.

The crew members knew Eric was teaching the young one his way of acting, so in order not to interfere with the two, most of them left the room consciously.
Only a few staff members remained in the room, and all of them were moving around lightly.

Hank pulled another chair and sat on the other side of the little guy with a smile.
This action made Viktor more secure, after all, compared to Eric, Hank, who had been with him for more than a week, could bring him a sense of security.

Eric ruffled the boy's head and smiled, “It's simple.
When you encounter failure, don't be discouraged.
Like the shooting just now, if it didn't work out this time, just try a few more times.
But if you become unconfident because of one or two failures, then one can never progress.”

The boy nodded vaguely, as if he realized something, but then he scratched his fingers and said in a low voice: “But, seeing so many uncles and aunts wasting their time because of me, I'm a little worried and afraid that they will get angry.”

“No, you're wrong,” Erik said.
“You got paid to act, same as them.
They get paid too.
And they're different from you.
They get paid by the hour.
The longer you shoot, the more they get paid, so they're actually quite happy.” Erik gestured to Nikolas, who was changing the film in the camera and had a faint smile on his lips.
“Nikolas, are you happy now?”

Nikolas released a forced smile and nodded, “Of course, little one, you can try as much as you want.
The more takes we have, the happier we'll be.
Of course, we can't deliberately mess up the shot because the director will definitely notice and we won't be paid for it.”

Eric gave Nick a stern look to stop him from rambling on, then said to Victor, “So, tell us about your performance, Victor.
Have you seen Home Alone?”

“Of course, Kevin and the two dumb thieves, unfortunately I only watched it once.
Mom no longer took me there.
Director Sir, Mom said that movie was directed by you, will this movie be as interesting as 'Home Alone' now?”

“That's for sure.
So, if you do a good job, kids all over the US will look up to you just like they do to Kevin.”

The boy immediately showed a yearning expression, although he didn't quite understand what Eric said because he hadn't learned the meaning of the word 'worship', but the little guy instinctively felt that being worshipped by children all over the United States must be something very impressive.

In order to prevent the boy from steering the conversation off-topic again, Eric said, “Since you've seen Home Alone, you must remember how Kevin looked in the movie, and that's what you're going to have to do for the role of Jonah.
It's similar to Kevin.
What you just did wasn't right, when you were reading the letter.
You should be a bit more mischievous, like grinning and glaring.
Oh, and can you do a silly face?”

“Wow–” The little one immediately hooked up the corner of his mouth, rolling his eyes and making a funny face.

Eric patted the boy on the shoulder: “Good job, so then you're going to do it like this…”

In ten minutes, shooting will resume.

Still the same pile of letters, the little one opened one and read it as usual: “Dear Sleepless in Seattle, you are the most attractive man I have ever heard of, puff…”

“Cut!” Eric shouted out instinctively, but then realized it was inappropriate.

He had just built up confidence in the little guy, originally thinking that he would wait until the boy finished the scene completely before saying anything else.
But seeing the boy's expression not being done properly, Eric instinctively shouted out, but it was too late to take it back at this point.

The boy looked back with bright yet hesitant eyes, and Eric had a sudden idea.
He grabbed a baseball cap beside him and threw it towards Nicholas, who was not far away.
It hit the innocent photographer's face: “Nicholas, you idiot, you messed up such a good shot with the shake of your camera.”

Eric roared while giving Nicholas a few winks, even though he was shot in the ground, the poor photographer didn't dare to pretend he didn't understand Eric's meaning and could only apologize with a forced smile: “Sorry, director, this was really an accident, I will pay attention next time, can you forgive me?”

“I'll let it go this time, but if you do it again, I'll…
deduct your salary.” Eric said with gritted teeth, then changed to a gentle look and said to the boy, “Victor, it's not your fault this time, it was Nicholas who messed up the shot.
See, even adults make mistakes too, so don't be nervous, shall we continue?”

“Well, Mr.
Director,” the little one nodded vigorously.

Perhaps encouraged by the idea that even adults make mistakes, I failed a few times after that but this shot eventually made it through.

Having found that this method could stimulate the confidence of the young ones, Eric immediately singled out a few 'dummies' and even Hansen complied and played the fool a few times.
This was followed by a sudden improvement in the boy's performance.