Dito Montiel hustled his way to Hollywood, but he just keeps coming back to the streets of Queens.
This time, the Astoria native brought the red carpet with him.
Montiel, director of “Fighting” and “The Son of No One,” was the toast of the Astoria Performing Arts Center’s fifth annual gala on Thursday night at the Museum of the Moving Image.
“It was a matter of when, not if, we were going to honor him,” said Taryn Sacramone, APAC’s executive director. “He’s an artist without boundaries.”
Montiel’s path to directing screen A-listers such as Al Pacino and Ray Liotta has had more curves than the Jackie Robinson Parkway.
“I feel like I’ve snuck into a party and nobody knows I’m here,” joked Montiel, 46. “I’m trying to lay low and not get kicked out.”
He said he realized he had arrived as a filmmaker when he was shooting Pacino, Liotta and Channing Tatum on a bench in the Ravenswood Houses in Long Island City. “Now that is cool,” he said with a smile.
Montiel said he’s continually drawn back to Queens, despite living in Los Angeles for a decade, because the plot lines pull heavily from his youth.
“I’m like a homing pigeon,” he said. “If I walk down Ditmars Boulevard I feel incredible.”
All of his three films were shot in New York City, and two were produced entirely with Queens as the backdrop.
As a youngster, Montiel sold peanuts on the street, walked dogs, bused tables at bars, and any other gigs to make spare cash.
“You make your own way. Nobody has had more crappy jobs than me,” he said.
Whenever he had a free moment, he was scrawling sentences in a marble notebook.
“That was my chance to create,” he said.
Those sheets of paper became the novel, “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” which was turned into a film.
“I don’t know how it worked but it did,” he said. “When I was writing the script I didn’t know INT meant interior — it was nuts.”
In between his recent career as a filmmaker and his youth hustling on city streets, Montiel was a member of a punk rock band signed to Geffen Records and modeled for Calvin Klein.
“I didn’t dare dream these things,” Montiel admitted. “My father would have been happy if I was a token booth clerk.”
Actors that have taken their cues from Montiel give him rave reviews — even though he has no formal training as a director.
“He is a terrific man who I thoroughly enjoyed working with and I congratulate him on this honor,” Ray Liotta said in a statement.
James Ransone, who appeared in “The Son of No One” and had stints on several HBO series, said Montiel approaches directing like he approached punk rock — he’s not afraid to improvise.
“You can’t purchase a scrapper’s attitude. That’s what makes him so special,” Ransone told the Daily News. “There’s no pageantry with that guy.”
