Finally in the Ring

“Resurrection Boulevard,” a new Showtime movie set in East L.A., is a complex story of boxing, family obligations and the pull of Mexican American culture and a wider world outside it.

The rough cut of the film, which won’t air until June, proved so powerful, and its themes so universal, that Showtime executives decided Wednesday to add it to their original series lineup as a weekly one-hour drama. Dennis Leoni, who wrote the film; director Jesus Trevino; and original cast members, including Elizabeth Pena, who has appeared in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” (1986), “Lone Star” (1996) and “Rush Hour” (1998), will remain with the cable show.

The movie comes to the small screen during a time of transition for Hollywood. After decades of English-language television dominated by white families and their stories, “Resurrection” is the first mainstream television project written, produced and directed by, as well as starring, Latinos.

“This could have been an Irish or Russian boxing family; any kind of ethnic-specific family,” said Leoni. “It’s how four generations of a Mexican American family cut their piece of the American pie.”

“Resurrection’s” quickly become a unique experience for those making the film.

“It’s a rare . . . opportunity that a Latino gets to walk onto a set and see Latinos in key roles, in front of the camera and on the set. Everyone, the wardrobe designer, the casting director, everyone,” said Trevino, whose directing credits include “NYPD Blue,” “The Practice” and “Chicago Hope.” “It’s not that we don’t have the skills, it’s just that we’ve been excluded.”

In addition to directing, Trevino will produce the series. He commissioned a Chicano mural for the film, and he intends to continue showcasing East L.A. as the backdrop throughout the series.

“We wanted to catch the eye, so we wanted to shoot it in East L.A. with a gritty look,” Trevino said. “I didn’t want it all to take place on a sound stage. That’s really important, because I think part of bringing that type of script to life is creating a world that looks realistic.”

He also wanted it to sound true-to-life, so he asked Leoni to listen to local band Ozomatli. Their music combines traditional Latin rhythms with hip-hop beats, and the lyrics are in Spanish and English. The band performs in one scene, and their songs are featured in the movie.

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At the center of the drama is the fictitious Santiago family, which lives on Resurrection Boulevard. The patriarch, Roberto Santiago, is an old fighter who works at an auto body shop as his five children finish school and begin their careers.

Trevino sees the Santiagos like any other family: relatives with ordinary moments and complex dynamics. But because they are also assimilating, their individual stories span the various stages of that bittersweet process.

Early each morning, Roberto Santiago lights candles at a bedroom altar for his late wife while his older daughter gets ready for work as a paralegal at a Beverly Hills law firm.

For his middle son Carlos, a middleweight championship is at stake, and Roberto rises before dawn to make sure he is stretching for his daily run through the streets of Los Angeles.

Much about the movie is visual and visceral--from the streets of East L.A. to the boxing ring. But for Trevino, the quietest scene was the most emotional to film.

After Carlos wins the fight, the family retires to a restaurant to celebrate and dance. An uncle, who has suffered irreparable brain injuries from boxing, and Roberto Santiago sit at the end of a table and watch the dance floor.

“They . . . reflect on [Santiago’s] departed wife, and he says it would have been great to have her there. We see the uncle damaged from boxing, and we see the father with the great pride that his son has won,” Trevino said. “You see the love and the warmth, but you see the tragedy and the price that has been paid.”

Hours later, Carlos is shot; he survives, but his dreams of boxing die.

This is where the real story of “Resurrection Boulevard” rolls out, as younger brother Alex debates dropping out of UCLA medical school to maintain the family’s boxing legacy.

Nicholas Gonzalez put 10 pounds on his 5-foot-9-inch frame to play Alex and trained with stuntman Jimmy Nickerson, who coached Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull” and Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky.” (The cost-conscious network gave Gonzalez only two weeks with Nickerson, and the crew had three days to film two fight sequences in the Grand Olympic Auditorium.)

Alex, along with the other characters in “Resurrection,” defies stereotyping. He is driven to please his father, to redeem his brother Carlos and to prove to himself that he has the prowess of three generations of fighters that came before him. “He’s not the hot-tempered Latino,” said Gonzalez, 23. “He’s logical and very interested in his culture.”

A large part of that culture is remaining within the family’s fold, but the family is at odds. Alex’s older sister and Aunt Bibi (Pena) see boxing as part of an era when no one in the family had the opportunity to be a doctor.

“In order to gain one thing, you sacrifice another thing,” Leoni said. When he was writing, Leoni kept in mind his own family’s traumatic move from a Latino enclave on the south side of Tucson to the mainly white area of East Tucson, which had better schools.

Though there is much that cuts across ethnic lines, “Resurrection” is, ultimately, the story of a Latino family as told by a writer, a director and actors who know the terrain intimately.

“We had a chance to make a breakthrough, where we had not been allowed to go before,” said the Cuban-born Tony Plana, who plays the patriarch.

“You don’t get these kinds of roles written for Latinos,” he said. “I was very moved for the possibilities that existed for this piece, in terms of depicting a family of Latinos and their love for each other, their conflicts for one another, their goals.”

The movie leaves open Alex’s decision to fight and the friction with his brother. The series will pick up those loose ends and address the burden on Yolanda, 26, the paralegal.

Her workdays are book-ended by her mother’s old household responsibilities, like cooking and cleaning. Even her personal life is loaded with conflict. She falls for a Latino lawyer who doesn’t speak Spanish but who moves between the Latino and white worlds with intimidating ease.

“These are issues of modern-day Latinas dating--the Mexican-Latina life and the modern American woman--that comes into conflict a lot,” said Ruth Livier, who plays Yolanda. “Which way do you tip the balance?”

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At the first read-through for the production, most of the actors were not meeting for the first time. Livier and Mauricio Mendoza, who plays Miguel Santiago, the oldest child, belong to L.A. theater veteran Plana’s East L.A. Classic Theatre company.

Plana, who has appeared in the movies “Nixon” (1995), “Primal Fear” (1996) and “Lone Star,” among others, said the movie provided an unfamiliar level of comfort.

“It’s that feeling of being in the hands of the same culture. Everybody felt invested in this thing, that it was our baby,” he said.

It’s also been Showtime President Jerry Offsay’s baby. He’s hoping “Resurrection” pulls in more Latino viewers, just as his black-themed projects and series have increased the subscriber base to overrepresent the percentage of black viewers in the country.

“Resurrection” turned up at Showtime three years ago, before last summer’s demand by activists that network executives add some ethnic characters to their lineups.

“There’s a growing Latino audience,” Offsay said, reeling off a list of three other ethnic projects in development at Showtime, which counts about 10% of its subscriber base as Latino.

Offsay said the motivation behind “Resurrection Boulevard” was to offer viewers something that was not available on the major networks or other cable channels.

“If I do cop, lawyer, doctor shows, you can find it anywhere else,” Offsay said. “We’re hoping with ‘Resurrection Boulevard’ that the similarities and differences will add to the shows. We’re hoping to prove the big broadcaster wrong. A big ethnic background doesn’t have narrow appeal.”

Both Plana and Leoni, who has been writing television scripts for such shows as “The Commish” for 20 years, said “Resurrection” was their first opportunity to explore strong, realistic Latino characters.

“Latinos get portrayed as maids, gardeners or drug dealers,” Leoni said. “In my home, I’m primary. I want to see that.”