Lillo Brancato is getting his shot at redemption.
After spending eight years behind bars for his role in a city cop-killing, the actor most famous for “A Bronx Tale” has landed a part in a boxing epic being filmed in Brooklyn and Staten Island, The Post has learned.
“Back in the Day’’ stars Alec Baldwin, Danny Glover and Mike Tyson and tells the story of a troubled kid from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, who gets mentored by a local mobster while training to be a prizefighter.
Brancato, 38, called the Hollywood role a “blessing” and gave all the credit to producer and star William DeMeo for giving him a shot.
“I know a lot of people were nervous about hiring someone who had a tainted past,” DeMeo said. But “we didn’t care what other people think. I could tell deep down in my heart that he changed. I wanted to give him a second chance.”
The two first met when DeMeo beat out Brancato for the role of a young Carlo Gambino in the 2001 film “Boss of Bosses,” about New York City Mafia kingpin Paul Castellano.
Brancato said he is thrilled to once again star in a major production and also work with former world heavyweight champ Tyson.
“He’s had such an interesting life. He also was incarcerated, so a lot of things are similar,’’ the actor said.
While Brancato has been blasted by some cops who feel he got off easy in the 2005 shooting death of off-duty Officer Daniel Enchautegui, DeMeo said he called an NYPD pal and asked whether he would be offended if he hired the ex-con.
The writer-director said his friend was fine with it, and that he and director Paul Borghese welcomed Brancato with open arms.
“Everybody deserves a second chance. He’s in a much better place,” Borghese said. “He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong person.”
In the movie, Brancato plays the loyal cousin of a boxer who takes on the main character.
“I myself play Nicky Germano, who is the cousin of Vito Germano, who fights the main character for the title,’’ the Yonkers resident explained.
“There are two different fights: one where he [Vito] wins, one where he loses. I’m there in the crowd cheering him on, and then when he loses, of course, I’m disappointed.
“And I also run into the [main] character, in a nightclub, and I mention to him, ‘You’re gonna be fightin’ my cousin Vito,’ and it escalates into a physical altercation. We have some words, and it ends up in a little bit of a scuffle.”
For Brancato, it’s a long-awaited return to the big screen.
He rose to fame with the 1993 Robert De Niro film “A Bronx Tale” and later played a dim-witted mobster in HBO’s “The Sopranos.’’
Warning: Explicit language
But his path to success also led him to heroin and cocaine — and a role in a 2005 Bronx robbery that went horribly awry.
Brancato and partner-in-crime Steven Armento were trying to break into an apartment in search of prescription drugs when they encountered Enchautegui, who lived next door.
Armento fatally shot the off-duty cop as he tried to stop them. Armento is now serving a life term for the murder.
Brancato, convicted of attempted burglary, spent nearly a decade behind bars before being sprung on New Year’s Eve 2013.
The actor said he accepts “full responsibility for how my actions and my drug addiction contributed to the death of that heroic police officer.”
Still, “with that being said, I wasn’t armed, I didn’t shoot anyone, I’ve never been armed in my life,” Brancato added.
While on parole, Brancato said, he spent months staying on the straight and narrow and “planting the seeds” for a potential career comeback.
Brancato wouldn’t say how much he’s getting paid for his work but said that as soon as he’s on his feet again financially, he wants to marry his girlfriend.
They met in prison after she watched “A Bronx Tale” in 2012 and sent him an Instagram message, he said.
Brancato said he has been sober for more than eight years and goes to Narcotics Anonymous meetings three to five times a week.
As for his detractors, the actor said, “The only thing I can do is be positive and do positive things and show people that I am a better person, and, you know, hopefully, one day they’ll look at the situation and look at how much I’ve changed.
“I’ve seen my life flash before my eyes. And there was a strong possibility that I would never see daylight again from outside those prison walls,” he said.
“And the fact that I have is truly a blessing. And every day, just being free, I’ve learned not to take anything for granted.”