Ten-year-old Houstonian Gabriel Silva lands major movie role.

When Gabriel Silva came home from his small Catholic school in Houston one day complaining of being picked on for his short stature, his mother began exploring options to raise his self-esteem.

“For me as a parent, to watch your kid be bullied, it’s terrible,” Tiffany Silva said.

She decided to enroll her son in acting classes. Three years later, Gabriel, now 10, has just finished shooting his first movie, “Live By Night.” He plays the son of actors Ben Affleck and Zoe Saldana.

“It was a small role, but it will be a big movie,” Gabriel said from Los Angeles, where he and his mother recently moved. They’re looking for other roles to fill Gabriel’s résumé before “Live By Night” is released in late 2017.

“He’s definitely not your average little boy,” said Kerri Glenn, Gabriel’s agent at Page Parkes Houston. “He has this kind of funky, unique personality of an old man stuck inside a little boy’s body.”

One of his strengths is his ability to shift from life as a normal boy to whatever character is thrown at him, Glenn said.

Gabriel attributes this to “a big imagination.” His mom didn’t know quite how big it was until she saw him in action.

“I had no idea that he was this talented,” she said. “And when I first saw an audition tape, I was floored. He can turn it on and off. He gets into character and stays focused with it. It’s amazing.”

But that doesn’t ease her worries. At 4-foot-7, Gabriel is still small for his age.

“It’s kind of scary,” she said. “Your protective instincts kick in. I had to explain that you’re going to be told you’re too short, that you’re not a blond, that you don’t have blue eyes. And I told him all these negatives and he said he knew but that he still wants to do it. So we’ll do it.”