That was one of the standout quotes from one of my favorite movies ever. “A Bronx Tale”. The movie had so many life lessons but what happened to one of the actors, Lillo Brancato Jr is pretty much what I Am Phella is all about. His first role, his biggest role, pretty much set him up for failure. It’s eerily similar to what happens to a lot of one hit wonder musicians and artists that try to live out their fabricated music. This is pretty old news but I’m here waiting for 3AM so I can watch Kobe play (USA Basketball) so I decided to put ya’ll on in case you didnt already know about this.

Here is what happened:
(CBS) NEW YORK Lillo Brancato Jr., whose resume includes roles in “Sopranos” and “A Bronx Tale,” has fallen from stardom to just about as low as a man can go. He said his devil was cocaine. It led him to a cell on Rikers Island, awaiting trial for the murder of a police officer. “There’s a saying in Italian, I’ll say it in English: ‘When the devil caresses you he wants your soul,’” Brancato said. “I’m not the monster that they portray me as in newspapers, a cold-blooded killer and all of that. I’m not that person at all.”

Brancato agreed to an exclusive interview with CBS 2 News with one restriction imposed by his lawyer: We couldn’t ask about the night he was with a friend, who allegedly shot and killed off-duty NYPD Officer Daniel Enchautegui.”I know in my heart I was in no way responsible for the death of that police officer,” Brancato said.Brancato is a self-confessed drug addict who got his first movie role at age 16 and starred in “A Bronx Tale,” opposite Hollywood heavyweights Robert De Niro and Chazz Palminteri. “The first time I ever got high smoking pot, really it was the first drug I ever did, it was on film,” said Brancato. Brancato remembers being so high during a scene in “A Bronx Tale” that he could hardly speak.

A year later he was using cocaine and battled addiction for the next 12 years.”There was times I was sober, one and a half or two months, worked so hard to get to that point and just out of nowhere something comes over you,” Brancato said. Brancato said drugs would have killed him had he not landed in jail, and he’s thought a lot about the night the cop was killed.”There is a god and he knows what was in my mind and in my heart that night,” Brancato said.

There are many out there who believe Brancato has put out some of his best acting during this entire ordeal, but he said that’s hardly the case.
“I’ve been through so much this is definitely not an act,” Brancato said. “This is my life and it’s not in the best place right now.”He waits, now clean and sober, to clear his name. Courtesy of CBS News.

Wasted talent indeed. What stood out to me most in this article was that the first time he used any kind of drug was during a scene in A Bronx Tale. Eventually he got hooked and that led to more drugs and that led to whatever happened in that apartment that day. Now he’s in jail and he’s resorted to using his “talent” to acting innocent when he clearly was involved in the cop’s killing. No matter what anyone says, the movie that was supposed to be this kids launching pad ended up being the reason he crashed so hard.

You can find out more on the case from his myspace: Lillo’s Myspace