The irony is amusing: One of the spring movie season's most brutal movies -- the current boxing opus Price Of Glory -- co-stars two of the sweetest people in the business.

One is Maria Del Mar, a dynamic and charming Canadian who is a homegrown television veteran. She is just now breaking out in Hollywood with her Price Of Glory role.

The other is Jimmy Smits, an incredibly polite, thoughtful American whose star status on U.S. network television and in movies has never spoiled his congenial nature.

Smits and Del Mar play an Arizona-based, Latino-American, husband-and-wife team in Price Of Glory. They are parents of three sons who grow up under their dad's obsessive tutelage to become world-class boxers. But, in the process, the family will be torn apart and tragedy will strike.

"I myself am not a big fan of boxing," says Del Mar, a proud new Canadian citizen who was born in Madrid of Venezuelan parents. She grew up in Ottawa after her diplomat dad passed away during his assignment to Canada and Del Mar and her siblings voted to stay in this country.

"I would never in a million years let my son take up boxing," Del Mar continues in a Toronto interview. "Golf maybe. But not rugby, not hockey, not boxing."

Del Mar, who divides her time between Toronto and Los Angeles for her career, is married to Canadian screenwriter Guy Mullally. Their son Gabriel is now "two years and three delicious months old," says Del Mar.

"Boxing is such a brutal sport and yet it was such an important issue in this film, because it can also be a passport out of the (working class) community in the story. There are hopes and dreams encapsulated in their attempts to get out.

"Also, when I read the script, (the blood sport) didn't stand out for me. For me, it wasn't about boxing, it was about the family. I hope I did at least a little bit of justice to the character. In the film, Rita Ortega was, I guess, the fabric that holds the family together. And I didn't want her to be the long-suffering victim-doormat wife -- and she's not!"

A world away in Los Angeles for a recent interview, Smits is charming a group of journalists by touring around and individualizing each encounter. He is like that in public too.

"I'm an actor," Smits offers. "What I do for a living is replicate humanity on stage or screen.

"So, if you're not with humanity on a daily basis, how can you do that?"

People are surprised when they see Smits just going about his daily business. He was challenged in an L.A. grocery store and on a New York bus in the past few weeks for just doing what millions of other people do daily. "People couldn't believe I would ride a bus, for example. But why not?"

But usually, few recognize him and Smits glides on. "I just put on my baseball cap and glasses and, by the the time most people notice, I'm gone."

Meanwhile, Smits would rather have you notice that he has created a character new to him as an actor for Price Of Glory. "Of course, television audiences have seen me in this kind of idealistic, heroic type of role as a lawyer, as a cop.

"And this guy (Arturo Ortega) is, if anything, an anti-heroic character. He has heroic qualities because everything he does comes out of a kind of love, albeit a misguided love. But he struggles. That's a different kind of role than I usually do. That's why I did it."


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