It's no secret that this week's Democratic National Convention is a political schmooze fest, but it's also a chance for Rhode Island politicos to hobnob with the power players from Hollywood.

Among them, Emmy award-winner Joe "Joey Pants" Pantoliano of HBO's The Sopranos fame is headed to Denver to screen his new documentary on mental illness, Hope's Messengers.

And who will introduce him at the big screening party tonight?

None other than Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch.

"Joey is a big fan of Rhode Island and he loves Patrick Lynch," Pantoliano staffer Lauren Millner tells Political Scene. "They're really good friends."

The attorney general and the man who played the mobster on TV met and became fast friends when Pantoliano was in the Ocean State two years ago filming the never-quite-launched CBS drama Waterfrontin which he played the morally ambiguous mayor of Providence.

The two soon learned that they also shared an interest in mental illness and how it relates to children. Lynch sits on the national board of the Jason Foundation Inc., a youth suicide prevention organization, and Pantoliano started No Kidding, Me Too (NKM2), an organization helping to destigmatize mental illness.

In recent months, Pantoliano has been hard at work on Hope's Messengers. Filmed partly in Boston, the documentary examines the lives of a group of people who suffer from mental illness.

Pantoliano is featured in the film, reflecting on the generations in his family with undiagnosed mental illnesses and his own experiences with clinical depression.

Since Lynch would be in the mile-high city for the convention, it seemed a perfect fit to have him introduce Pantoliano and his work-in-progress footage at a screening party.

And apparently it's also a chance for the unlikely friends to catch up.

"I know Joey adores him," Millner said.

-- Cynthia Needham, Journal State House bureau