"[H]e was returning home from school when he realized that a car was following him. He recalled that a well-dressed man... emerged from the vehicle..."

"... and asked him for his name. Having been instructed by his mother not to speak to strangers, Mr. Staiola did not respond. Mr. Staiola said [the man, Vittorio De Sica,] then followed him home, where his parents immediately recognized the film eminence but refused to allow their son to appear in his movie. Later, Mr. Staiola recounted, an uncle took him back to audition before De Sica. Still determined to cast Mr. Staiola as Bruno, De Sica returned to his parents, Mr. Staiola said, and offered the extravagant sum of 300,000 lire for two months’ work. At that point, Mr. Staiola said, his father turned to him with a smile and declared: 'If you don’t go to work tomorrow, I’ll kill you.'"

From "Enzo Staiola, child actor at heart of ‘Bicycle Thieves,’ dies at 85/He was 8 years old, with no acting experience, when director Vittorio De Sica cast him in the 1948 film that epitomized Italian neorealism" (WaPo)(free-access link).

ADDED: My son John wrote about "The Bicycle Thieves," with an update about Staiola's death, at his "101 Years of Movies" blog, here. It was his second favorite movie of the year 1948. (First was "Unfaithfully Yours," a movie I quoted a few years ago, here.)