After eight years in prison, “A Bronx Tale’’ star Lillo Brancato claims he is a changed man – and will soon find himself back in front of a camera.
Brancato — whose last major role was in 1999 as a dimwitted mobster on HBO’s hit ‘’The Sopranos’’ — told The Post in his first interview after jail that he has been offered a role in an upcoming short film being produced by longtime pal Noel Ashman and a “well-known director” the pair aren’t ready to disclose.
“I really do love acting, and for any opportunity, for anyone to take a chance on me so quickly, it’s humbling and I’m just so grateful,” Brancato said.
But the onetime bad boy – a narcotics, heroin and crack-addicted junkie — said he’s more focused on the big picture than the big screen.
‘’I’ve changed a lot,’’ an emotional Brancato, 37, said, displaying no hint of his former devil-may-care swagger. ‘’And I am going to work my butt off to show people I can be trusted.’’
‘’I know how ugly addiction is, and intrinsically it would be valuable to me to help other people — and I mean that from the bottom of my heart,’’ he said. ’’If I could help people to not make the same mistakes and incredibly bad decisions I made, that would really be something I could be proud of.’’
Released on New Year’s Eve after serving nearly a decade at Rikers, Oneida and Hudson correctional centers for a botched 2005 drug burglary that also led to the shooting death of an off-duty cop, Brancato said he has been catching up with his close-knit, extended family, learning to use an iPhone, taking walks around his Yonkers neighborhood and attending AA meetings.
Brancato and pal Steven Armento were wasted on Dec. 10, 2005 when they tried to break into a friend’s Pelham Bay house to steal prescription drugs. Officer Daniel Enchautegui, who lived in the house next door, heard breaking glass and went to investigate. Armento, who had a handgun, fatally shot Echautegui in the chest. He is serving a life sentence for murder. Brancato, who was not armed, was convicted of attempted burglary.
“There is not one day that goes by, not one, that I don’t think of December 10, 2005,’’ Brancato said, his voice breaking. ‘’ I have always respected policemen and have always been treated well by them. They are working class guys, and my family is working class. I take full responsibility for what I did.”
”I wish I could go back and change the outcome of that night. It was wrong for me to be there. I will think about that day every single day of my life.’’
Brancato said ‘’a few’’ of his former ‘’Sopranos’’ castmates reached out to him after his arrest — but even his own family threatened to give up on him because he refused to stop doing drugs, even in jail.
‘’For the first year in Rikers, I was still using,’’ said Brancato, noting that drugs were readily available at the lockup.
‘’I had all these people supporting me, and they finally had had it,’’ he said. ”They told me if I kept going like I was going, they wouldn’t be there.’’
‘’It really woke me up.”
He said he has been clean and sober since November 18, 2006.
Brancato had been due for parole in July, but got out early after meeting educational and disciplinary requirements, officials said.
He got a college degree in business management and administration behind bars, completing assignments and courses by mail through Ashworth College in Georgia.
‘’That’s not something I ever would have done [before jail.] Not in the state of mind I was in,’’ he said. “I was too far gone.”
‘’You can’t always perceive everything as bad — if you make good of it, if you can educate yourself, it helps cancels out the negative of being incarcerated.”
Producer pal Ashman, who is giving him his first post-prison job, said he knows he’s taking a chance backing Brancato.
‘’Lillo has a good heart,” Ashman said. ‘’He got sidetracked [by drugs] and it changed him. It was hard, at times, not to give up on him. He hurt a lot of people. He has a lot to prove to earn back their respect. But I hope people are willing to give him another chance.’’
Brancato said being reunited this week with his 16-month-old nephew — whom he’d seen just twice in jail — strengthened his determination to stay clean.
‘’I want to give him someone to look up to,’’ he said. ‘’I feel like I could have some influence in shaping other lives. Because of where I was, I think people might listen to me.’’
‘’There are going to be trust issues, I absolutely understand that, and it’s a challenge I expect,’’ he said.
‘’But I am going to do whatever it takes to show that I am sincere, that I am sober, that I am grateful and that I can be trusted — however long it takes.”