Gangsters now turn filmstars

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br /><img align="left" src="/photo/666739.cms" alt="/photo/666739.cms" border="0" />LOS ANGELES: The real gang member had every reason to feel disrespected. This was his park, after all, and the five fierce-looking thugs lounging around a picnic table were sporting enemy tattoos and making gang hand signs he did not recognize.<br /><br />It did not matter that television cameras were rolling or even that the unwanted guests were being dabbed with makeup. The real gangbanger marched straight into the shot, lifted his Lakers jersey and flashed the name of his gang emblazoned across his rippled abdomen. <br /><br />A police detective on the set calmed him down with a mixture of English and Spanish, and the young man agreed to leave. But for the actors from Suspect Entertainment, a talent agency including former gang members, mainly Latino, it was another reminder that Hollywood offers scant protection from what these onetime outlaws call "the life."<br /><br />"We always worry, because someone we hurt in the past might want to get us back one day," said Frank Alvarez (centre in the photo), who stepped away from a gang five years ago to play gangsters instead. <br /><br />As with most of his roles, he was hired for this particular job - a gang member in a television pilot for a Warner Brothers cop thriller called <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Wanted</span> - because he has the right look: the shaved head, the devilish goatee, the Pancho Villa tattoos and the dent over his left eye where, he said, he was once hit with a crowbar. ("That one came from one of my own homies," he said.) <br /><br />For his services, Alvarez, who said he has spent ample time in Los Angeles County jail, earned the standard union day rate, about $675. "Yes, it''s about money," he said during a break. "But it''s also about respect. We do realism better than anybody can." <br /><br />The entertainment industry seems to agree. It has called upon the seven-year-old Suspect Entertainment to supply actors for roles in movies like <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Charlie''s Angels: Full Throttle</span>, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">S.W.A.T.</span> and <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Training Day</span>. Wherever they go, the actors from Suspect get triple- takes from on-set security personnel and are occasionally barred from the craft services table, which provides actors and crew with snacks.<br /><br />"It''s a pretty simple equation," said Gregory Hoblit, the director of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Wanted</span>. "If you want authenticity, you need the real guys who know how to move and know what to say in ways we don''t, not hired hands with appliquid decals." (NYT News Service)<br /><br /><formid=367815></formid=367815></div> </div>