Damian Chapa

Damian Robert Chapa born October 29 1963 is a MexicanAmerican actor film director and film producer Chapa was born in Dayton Ohio USA He was briefly married to Natasha Henstridge Among his earlier notable film roles are one of the leads in Taylor Hackfords Blood In Blood Out and the part of Ken in the film adaptation of Street Fighter Subsequently Chapa has directed and produced in addition to starring in his own films These movies include 1998s Kill You Twice 2000s The Lonely Life of Downey Hall 2002s Man of Faith 2004s Shade of Pale 2004s El Padrino and 2006s IRA King of Nothing Chapa cowrote and directed Polanski Unauthorized a biopic of Roman Polanski in which he played the title role It was released on February 13 2009 in Los Angeles California Chapa will begin filming the only film about Marlon Brando ever to be made in June 2010 called Brando Unauthorized He followed this with Vatos Locos starring himself Albert Pyun was supposed to direct but left the project following a dispute over his salary so Chapa directed himself The film is about the Chinese mafia in Los Angeles and how the Mexican gang boys known as vatos fought back and defeated the Chinese gangbangers As of 2011 Chapa has yet another project in development an indie drama titled The Best So Far which takes place in the late 80s about a smalltown Canadian girl who loves Judo and dreams about being one of the finalists at the 88 Olympics The ensemble drama follows the lines of Rocky in the sense that its not about winning but going the distance and getting your life back Chapa who wrote the drama will play the widowed father who does his best to make life easier for his daughter Although the film is in its very early development stages Chapa hopes the script will attract the interest of talented artists such as Ellen Page for the main role and Jennifer Connelly for the supporting role this being the part of the final toughest competition Pages character faces off during the 88 Olympics and gets defeated by Although not winning she gets her sense of victory be offering a brave stand against the better fighter and both discover in the process they are quite simillar despite their differences Insiders who had a chance to read the script stated that it is one of the finest notyetfilmed scripts they had ever seen Acclaimed director David Cronenberg asked for New Line to bid for the script but Chapa wouldnt sell it because of his determination to direct the picture himself The project is slated to be shot sometime in mid2012 for tentative release in 2013 at the Sundance Film Festival Description above from the Wikipedia article Damian Chapa licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia