For Patrick Gleason, starring in a film about a professional wrestler who finds unlikely redemption at the end of his career was not just a new experience but a metaphor for his own life story.
Just a few years ago, Mr. Gleason, 43, sat in a prison cell, serving a 15-year sentence for the attempted murder of a police officer at a Maywood nightclub in 1989. Then a childhood friend in the movie business contacted the tall, tattooed Mr. Gleason after he had been released to serve the last three years of his sentence under house arrest.