On the day of Tubelight’s release, Salman Khan posted his co-star Matin Rey Tangu’s audition tape on Twitter. The high-spirited Tangu, who was shortlisted from among 1,000 children, is seen dancing, enacting scenes and reading lines from the film. No wonder he got the part.

Kabir Khan’s Tubelight is an official adaptation of the American drama Little Boy (2015). The movie explores the endless possibilities of love and hope. Khan plays Laxman, who tries to bring back his brother Bharat (Sohail Khan) from the Sino-Indian War of 1962. The June 22 release’s real star isn’t Salman Khan, portraying a man with a child’s mind, but the cherubic eight-year-old Tangu from Arunachal Pradesh. Tangu plays Guo, an Indian-Chinese boy who moves along with his single mother to the town featured in the film.

Tangu became an overnight star at a press conference when he silenced a reporter’s question with wit. When the journalist, assuming he was Chinese, asked him if this was his first visit to India, Tangu replied, “India par hi baithta hai, toh India mei toh aayega na” (I am from India, so I will obviously come here).