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In one of his best violent performances since 2010’s “The Killer Inside Me,” actor Casey Affleck shows the audience his great acting range in this year’s revenge drama “Out of the Furnace.”

Affleck played an angry, frustrated former Iraqi veteran who turned to illegal bare knuckle fights to cope with his depression and personal problems. As he participated in these fights, his character mysteriously disappeared after a fight and his brother must seek the truth in the Appalachian Mountains.

Latino-Review had an exclusive sit-down interview with Affleck during the press day late last month. We discussed about Christian Bale’s presence on the set, his research on war veterans and his experience in training as a bare knuckle fighter. And for giggles, I’ve even asked up on who will make a better Batman between his brother, Ben Affleck and Bale.

“Out of the Furnace” is currently in theaters.

James Gandolfini in Zero Dark Thirty

The man who gave a Mob boss a soft side, actor James Gandolfini died on Wednesday June 19, 2013, from a suspected heart attack while on vacation in Rome, Italy. He was 51.

Gandolfini became a household name playing Tony Soprano, the reluctant Mob boss of HBO’s hit show The Sopranos. As well as making Gandolfini a star, the show secured HBO as a home for brilliant original entertainment. Gandolfini played Tony for six seasons, carrying the series on his broad shoulders.

The role wasn’t easy for Gandolfini. The best roles never are. In a Fox News interview around the time of the show’s finale, Gandolfini said that playing Tony was “wearing” and that “it’s very calming to move on.” But his performances in The Sopranos won him numerous awards over the years, including three Emmy statuettes and a Golden Globe. Check him...

New York -- James Gandolfini would have hated all this fuss.

He was an actor who shrank from attention for anything but the roles he brought to life. No false modesty. He simply did his best to remain a private citizen behind his public characters. These included, of course, Tony Soprano, the fiendish, tormented mobster who the world came to know and revere as a towering dramatic achievement.

Now, out of the blue, this flood of tributes to Gandolfini upon his untimely death? This would likely have struck him as excessive and needless, upstaging for a moment his lifetime of work.

In a too-brief career that ended Wednesday at age 51 while he was vacationing in Rome, Gandolfini can be celebrated for performances on TV, on stage and in films that reached beyond the obvious triumph of "The Sopranos" and the unsought celebrity it brought him. Before, during and after "The Sopranos,...

Sad news today as you may have heard, James Gandolfini died of a reported heart attack, he was 51. Gandolfini will be forever known for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on the seminal HBO series The Sopranos, which won him 3 Emmy Awards and 6 nominations. He was an actor, producer, and father. Gandolfini is survived by his wife Deborah Lin, daughter and son.

There is a lot that will be said in the coming days about how great of an actor he was. He was without a doubt one of the best character actors working today. His recent roles in Killing Them Softly and Zero Dark Thirty garnered a lot of acclaim. I urge you to Seek out his earlier work as well; as Virgil in 1993’s True Romance or his performance as Colonel Winter in Last Castle especially.

My girlfriend and I are currently on season five of The Sopranos.

The entertainment world has been paying tribute to James Gandolfini, who has died suddenly at the age of 51.

Gandolfini rose to international fame for his award-winning, critically acclaimed portrayal of conflicted mob boss Tony in The Sopranos, but also enjoyed success on stage and on the big screen, appearing alongside some of Hollywood's biggest names during a career of over two decades.

He produced two acclaimed documentaries for HBO as well - Alive Day: Home from Iraq on injured Us soldiers returning home from battle, and Wartorn: 1861-2010 on attitudes to post-traumatic stress disorder in American history and society.

At the time of his death, Gandolfini had numerous projects in development, including big-screen crime thriller Animal Rescue and Criminal Justice, his own seven-part drama series for HBO and BBC Worldwide.

Move through a photo gallery remembering some of James Gandolfini's career highlights below:...

James Gandolfini, who simultaneously elicited thrill and excitement with his portrayal of Tony Soprano on HBO's "The Sopranos" has died after a massive heart attack in Italy. According to Variety, he was vacationing at the time of his death.

This is a developing story and we'll update as we get more information. Here's a look at the actor's life from Wiki:

James Joseph Gandolfini, Jr. (September 18, 1961 . June 19, 2013) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, about a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and career in the Mafia. For this role, Gandolfini garnered enormous praise, winning both the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series three times. Gandolfini's other roles include the woman-beating mob henchman Virgil in True Romance,...

Chicago – James Gandolfini, who gave us one of the most influential and timeless characters of all time as Tony Soprano on “The Sopranos,” has passed away at the age of 51 after suffering a heart attack on vacation in Italy, where he was to receive an award at a film festival this week, according to Variety.

The star of HBO’s incredible drama, for which he won three Best Actor Emmys, recently appeared in “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.” He was working on “Animal Rescue,” “Criminal Justice,” and “Taxi 22.” Other notable credits include “True Romance,” “Get Shorty,” “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Killing Them Softly,” and “Not Fade Away.”

James Gandolfini

Photo credit: HBO

He won acclaim in film and on stage but Gandolfini will forever be associated with the lead role in David Chase’s incredible “The Sopranos.” For that role he won three Emmys, a Golden Globe,...

by Lynn Elber, AP

Los Angeles (AP) - James Gandolfini, whose portrayal of a brutal, emotionally delicate mob boss in HBO's "The Sopranos" was the brilliant core of one of TV's greatest drama series and turned the mobster stereotype on its head, died Wednesday in Italy. He was 51.

Gandolfini died while on holiday in Rome, the cable channel and Gandolfini's managers Mark Armstrong and Nancy Sanders said in a joint statement. No cause of death was given.

[Related: James Gandolfini Dies of Heart Attack at 51 (Report)]

"He was a genius," said "Sopranos" creator David Chase. "Anyone who saw him even in the smallest of his performances knows that. He is one of the greatest actors of this or any time. A great deal of that genius resided in those sad eyes."

Gandolfini, who won three Emmy Awards for his role as Tony Soprano, worked steadily in film and on stage after the series ended. He earned a 2009 Tony Award...

New York — In the five years since "The Sopranos" ended, James Gandolfini has eschewed the spotlight, instead disappearing into a heap of character actor performances that, while they may lack the heft of Tony Soprano, have only further proved the actor's wide-ranging talent.

This season offers a gluttony of Gandolfini, albeit in bite-sized parts. In Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden hunt docudrama "Zero Dark Thirty," he plays Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. In David Chase's `60s period drama "Not Fade Away," he plays the old-school father of a wannabe rocker. And in Andrew Dominick's crime flick "Killing Them Softly," he plays an aged, washed-up hit man.

None of the roles are showy lead men, and that's just fine with Gandolfini.

"I'm much more comfortable doing smaller things," Gandolfini said in a recent interview. "I like them. I like the way they're shot; they're shot quickly. It's all about...

Veterans Day is a time to remember those who have served in our armed forces, and often the cinematic honor that is given is in the form of combat films, with everything from the flag-waving The Green Berets to the more introspective Vietnam war films of the 1980s. One way that HBO Documentary Films has chosen to honor those who have fought for the United States is to bring to light a very real issue that is slowly getting more attention. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Ptsd) is a psychological condition that results from trauma faced during combat, and if untreated, the results can be disastrous for the service member and his or her family. Wartorn: 1861-2010 is a documentary premiering on HBO tonight at 9 p.m. Et (and sure to be rerun several times in the ensuing weeks), which examines the reality of Ptsd and how it has been a cost of war for all time. Using...

Today is Veterans Day, and to commemorate that, HBO debuts a documentary about veterans, Wartorn: 1861-2010, and it focuses on the effects of war, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, on the people who've fought for us over the past two centuries. The film, directed by Jon Alpert and Ellen Gooseberg Kent, is executive produced by James Gandolfini, the actor best known for playing the lead role in The Sopranos. He previously interviewed wounded Iraq war...

If you’ve been a long time reader of this column (if so, my condolences) than you know that I’ve had a mixed relationship with the show Smallville. There have been times in the past I’ve loved Smallville and there have been times in the past where I’ve detested it. It has been a very uneven show that has strayed far away from its original concept in the fight to stay viable.

For those of you that may be completely unaware of what Smallville is still the premise is really simple: It’s a revised version of the life that Clark Kent lives leading up to becoming Superman. The show started as a hybrid version of The X-Files and Roswell with a monster-of-the-week theme while the young Clark learned about his powers and abilities. As the years have passed the monster-of-the-week theme stuck but the developing Supes...