Standouts from the Tribeca Film Festival

Dennis Farina
In the poker mockumentary “The Grand,” nearly everything was improvised — even the climactic final table showdown between the film’s main characters, played by Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, Dennis Farina and others.

The movie’s conclusion was decided in those poker hands, and Farina, playing the old-school gambler L.B.J. Deuce Fairbanks, went for the pot just like everyone else.

“You play the cards that are dealt to you,” the 63-year-old actor says with a chuckle.

Farina, though, has also determined his own fate. He was a Chicago policeman until, as he neared 40, he switched to a career in acting. Farina’s past has often been what journalists focus on, but as he says, “It’s been done to death.” It has sometimes overshadowed his ample gift for injecting a movie with wry, tough-guy panache.

AP Dennis Farina in a scene from ‘You Kill Me.’

Farina appeared in not only “The Grand” at Tribeca, but as an overbearing boss in Edward Burns’ “Purple Violets,” and as a rival mobster in “You Kill Me.” The latter stars Ben Kingsley as a rehabilitating hit man (for alcohol, not killing) and will be released June 22.

“If I’m characterized as a character actor, that’s fine with me. Whatever they want to call me is fine,” say Farina. “In the kind of roles I do, you can do them and walk away from it and have a really nice time.”

“The career path I’ve had, I’m OK with,” he says.

Farina got into film by first working as a consultant on Michael Mann’s 1981 film “Thief,” which led to a small part in the movie. He’s since been a regular of Mann’s, including the film “Manhunter,” the TV series “Crime Story” and several episodes of “Miami Vice.” (A car accident prohibited him from appearing in “Collateral.”)

He’s had memorable roles in “Midnight Run,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Get Shorty” (probably his most beloved performance) and another adaptation of an Elmore Leonard book, Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight.”

He starred in “Law & Order” as Detective Joe Fontana for two seasons and then left the show last year. Next up is the Farrelly Brothers produced “National Lampoon’s Bag Boy,” which comes out later this year and Farina says may have been the most fun he’s ever had on a movie.

“Sometimes you can take those dramatic roles and maybe interject a little humor into them and I think the reverse also works,” says Farina. “One of the funny things in life to me is a guy who takes himself very seriously.”

Diego Luna

Seth Wenig / AP Diego Luna first directing effort, ‘Chavez,’ is a documentary about the legendary boxer Julio Cesar Chavez.

To the female fans of Diego Luna (and there are many), that the actor would hide himself off camera is an injustice.

But the 27-year-old Mexican actor who emerged after his internationally hailed performance in 2001’s “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” did just that. At Tribeca, Luna premiered his directorial debut “Chavez,” a documentary on the legendary Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez.

Though the actor can occasionally be glimpsed in a few of the film’s interviews, Luna is otherwise unseen. An actor jumping into the director’s chair isn’t uncommon, but one beginning with a documentary is a rarity.

Luna says he didn’t have any interest in making a biopic on Chavez.

“Every time I see those kind of films, the character is dead,” Luna says. “I had the chance to be close to the real guy and celebrate him, not myself or my talent or the talent of somebody else. I wanted all the attention to go to him.”

For Luna, Chavez is a national hero whose career in some ways mirrors the story of Mexico. The fighter held a series of farewell bouts in 2005, retiring with a record of 108 wins, 6 loses and 2 draws. At one point, he held a streak of 87 victories.

“I became a man in the process (of watching Chavez) and I started to have an opinion about my country,” says Luna. “So in a way, it’s a chance to talk about a very important time in my life where Julio was always present.”

Luna, who had previously only directed a play, says — like many first time directors — that he was surprised at the long work of post-production.

“I never went to school, I never learned from A to B what to do,” he says of filmmaking. “So I think a documentary gives you a free kind of way to find that, to find your own way to tell a story.”

Luna will have two notable films released this year: “The Night Buffalo” and “Mr. Lonely,” a movie about celebrity look-alikes in which he plays a pseudo Michael Jackson. The actor says these projects and “Chavez” helped him rediscover his love of movies.

“My life changed after ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’ and I then started to take everything that came to me. It all sounded exciting,” Luna says. “The last year and half, I was losing the enjoyment of acting. That’s why two years and a half ago, I started thinking about directing. I was kind of sick of jumping from one project to another without having my own stuff going on.”

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