De Niro returns to boxing ring minus gloves

The gloves have finally come off Robert De Niro.

The great heavyweight of the boxing film has at last moved to the trainer's corner, that sweat-drenched home of grizzled veteran actors and manly pep talks. In Hands of Stone, Jonathan Jakubowicz's biopic of the lightweight champion Roberto Duran, De Niro plays the famed trainer Ray Arcel. Edgar Ramirez, the Carlos and Point Break star, plays the Panamanian fighter in the film.

Sitting on a rooftop in Cannes shortly after Hands of Stone debuted at the French Riviera film festival, De Niro says he was happy to leave the rigors of playing a boxer to the 39-year-old Ramirez.