'Band of Brothers' Actor to Play Boxing Legend in New Movie

A new movie about boxing legend Willie Pep is in the works, and the lead actor has been named. According to Deadline, James Madio, who is known for his work in Band of Brothers, will star as Willie Pep in the biopic Pep. Filming will begin next month in Hartford, Connecticut, the hometown of the former world champion. Robert Kolodny is directing the film, and Steve Loff wrote the script. 

Pep will focus on the boxer in 1965, when the prime of his boxing career has faded. While living with his parents, wife and drug-addled son, Pep is looking to be a "somebody" again at the age of 42. And based on the debts mounting up and an interesting past, Pep decides to get back in the ring and make a big comeback. 

Pep competed in 241 career matches and won 229 of them with 65 knockouts. In his comeback, Pep won all his match except for one, which was his final match in 1966. Pep won the World Featherweight Championship twice between the years 1942 and 1950. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, and the Associated Press named Pep the No. 1 featherweight of all time. He died in 2006 at the age of 84. 

"Boxing was very good to me," Pep said in a past interview. "Being a fighter was an education and it's been very good to a lot of people. Without boxing I wouldn't have been able to buy my mother and father a home. There's a lot of nice things that happened to me because of boxing. I can't say anything that's not nice about boxing. I learned the business. I found out early in my boxing career that you had to be in shape to fight. I always trained faithfully."   

Madio, 45, played the role of Frank Perconte in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers which aired in 2001. He went on to appear in a number of TV shows over the years, including JAG, Arli$$, Las Vegas, CSI: Miami, Cold Case and Blue Bloods. And since Band of Brothers, Madio has appeared in a number of movies, including Kick-Ass, Jersey Boys and Bottom of the 9th.