Academy Awards: For Your Consideration

When I went to bed a week ago last Thursday night, I had no idea that the next afternoon I would be working on the Academy Awards TV broadcast.

Prologue Films, my brother Kyle’s film company based in LA, is working on the Oscar telecast for the ninth straight year. This year they will be featuring interviews with the mothers of directors, actors, writers and producers who’ve been nominated for a golden statue in 2011.

Many of the interviewees could be tracked down or sent to California, some wanted to remain on the East Coast, so the producers had to come to them.

A week ago Thursday, Kyle (, Class of 1980) and his crew went to New York City to talk to the mother of the director of the film Winter’s Bone.  The next day, a trip to Braintree was in the works to speak to Alma Wahlberg, mother of the former Marky Mark Wahlberg, and the producer of The Fighter.

The film that follows the lives of Lowell boxers Mickey Ward and Dicky Eklund has been nominated in the Best Picture category. Christian (Batman) Bale has also been nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing Dicky Eklund.

Mrs. Wahlberg put the kibosh on a trip to LA, so the crew would be visiting her at her condo in Braintree on Friday afternoon for the big interview.

I received an e-mail that Kyle was coming to town sometime Thursday or Friday, but had no idea what the purpose of his visit was. When the dog started barking at 2 a.m., I knew he had arrived.

Every time Kyle flies into Logan to come to , he makes two stops before he gets to my house. The cemetery in Everett to visit my mom, and Kelly’s on Revere Beach for a fishplate.

“You know there’s a Kelly’s on route one, so you can just go up from Everett,” I said.

He told me it’s not the same as the one on Revere Beach.

Friday morning he told me I was coming to Braintree, to punch up anything Wahlberg related on the computer for him on the drive down.  We picked up the crew at the Onyx hotel and headed to Mrs. Wahlberg’s.

She couldn’t have been more welcoming or pleasant if she tried.  Her niece Patricia and best friend Phyllis were with her for moral support.

When the crew was ready to shoot, I passed Kyle a note with some questions to ask Alma.

“Why don’t you do this, you’re the journalist,” Kyle said. I sensed sarcasm, but headed for the “set” in Alma’s living room.

So that’s how I ended up in the chair, asking Alma the questions about The Fighter, movies, television, The New Kids On The Block, and raising nine kids in Dorchester.

I learned how she has to DVR Blue Bloods, starring her older son Donnie and Tom Selleck, her walk on role on Entourage, produced by Mark, and how she liked living in Beverly Hills in the house the kids bought her, but she had to move back to Massachusetts.

“I missed the changing seasons,” Alma said.

“It would be nice if he wins, if he thanks his mother,” she said. “I really would like to see him thank his brother Donnie, he got Mark started in the business.”

My living room is covered with pictures of my kids in their baseball uniforms, my wedding, and my dog, Talan. Alma’s walls are covered with photos of her nine kids and 18 grandchildren, and of course the shots with her and George Clooney, Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey.

The photo of Alma and Oprah is autographed, “To Alma, thanks for all your help, Oprah.”

On Sunday night I’ll be watching the Oscars, pulling for The Fighter and for Bale. Thinking of my afternoon at Alma Wahlberg’s house when she served up sodas, coffee, tea, chips and dip, and tolerated my questions for over an hour.