From Madoff tipster to film star

Now, that tale is being retold in “Chasing Madoff,’’ a documentary film scheduled for release next week in the Boston area. During lunch last week at a cafe in the Financial District to talk about the movie, Markopolos seemed at ease, happy - especially in comparison with last year’s “Daily Show’’ interview. Back then, he still came across as a grim, bookish former Boston securities analyst, right down to the salmon-colored necktie that flopped down on Jon Stewart’s desk.

“You are an angry dude!’’ Stewart said after one exchange.

“I am so angry,’’ Markopolos replied. “I can’t tell you how angry I am.’’

Who could blame him? He spent most of a decade trying to get an ineffectual Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Madoff. In the end, however, it was Wall Street’s collapse that rooted out the phony hedge-fund manager - unable to sustain the ruse when investors scrambled to grab their cash, Madoff turned himself in. Life savings vanished in the scroll of a CNBC headline. Markopolos considered it a personal failure.

“I was like the boy that cried wolf,’’ he says onscreen, “but there was a wolf.’’

If smiles come more easily for him today, it is partly because Markopolos believes the 2011 SEC - charged with overseeing the financial industry - is “a much better place.’’ The agency listens, he said.

“They either had to wake up or go out of existence. They’re doing big cases now, they’re very aggressive.’’

It also helps that Madoff is collecting dust in a jail cell for the next century and a half, or “a buck-fifty,’’ as Markopolos puts it. “He’s in the right place.’’

Even the necktie is under control - tucked neatly into his dress shirt as the waiter swooped in with a plate of grilled chicken. “I have my life back,’’ he said between bites. “Who wouldn’t want that?’’

He still lives in the Southeastern Massachusetts town of Whitman, “six doors from the Irish pub,’’ and says he is working to expose big banks’ endemic evils. It’s how he prefers to operate - in the background.

“I chase big white-collar rats down a sewer,’’ he said. “That’s what I do for a living. I see the worst forms of human behavior.’’