the awards editions 2010-2011

doing The Perfect Storm, portraying Bobby Shatford, I went
to his family, and stayed with them. I wanted them to feel
like we were going to protect him.
DeaDline: It’s still a pretty raw portrayal of the family. What
was the reaction of Micky and Dicky to the film?
WahlbeRg: I showed it to them twice. First time, it was
me and David, Christian, and a couple other people at Paramount.
I realized how difficult it must be to see your life
up there on the big screen, condensed to under two hours.
So then I said, come see it with an audience. We did that
in New Jersey and that was an experience. This movie is so
down and dirty and real, but it has a lot of humor and emotion,
and an amazing payoff at the end. To see the crowd’s
reaction, I really felt proud. Micky got it the first time he
saw it. For Dicky, it was harder to swallow.
DeaDline: It’s easy to see why Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and
then Christian Bale would spark to playing Dicky. By comparison,
Micky is subtle and understated. Wasn’t there a moment
when you thought, ‘I should play Dicky’?
WahlbeRg: No. There was always one role for me to play,
and that was the champ. I wasn’t giving up the belt. And
look, who else was going to play that part and be as believable?
What I wanted to do was to create the most realistic
boxing in the movie and look like I could win that title.
DeaDline: Which fight performances inspired you?
WahlbeRg: There are so many. Raging Bull is so different
than Rocky. Daniel Day-Lewis was very good in a lot of ways
in The Boxer. Body and Soul. Robert Ryan, Kirk Douglas.
We wanted to make one that was our own, but there was a
little bit of the dark side of Raging Bull, and some Rocky. You
see Micky Ward in any of his great fights, and they play like
Rocky because of his style of fighting. And let’s not forget
Hilary Swank. She looked good in there, starting out with
no knowledge about a boxing ring. She’d never hit a speed
bag, but she had heart and desire.
DeaDline: When you first signed on, Darren Aronofsky was
directing you and Matt Damon. Then Matt stepped out but
no problem, you’ve got Brad Pitt negotiating. Then Aronofsky
left to make The Wrestler, and Pitt left to make Inglourious
Basterds. And you’re left behind. Did you fear that this movie
wasn’t going to happen?
WahlbeRg: I really couldn’t look at it like that. I’d already
told Micky that we were going to get it done, and I
was getting three or four phone calls a week from him. So,
I had to figure it out. At Paramount, they had a certain
idea of how they wanted the movie to be made, the filmmaker,
the costar, and the budget. I went to the studio
and said, I think I can figure out a way to get this movie
done. Can you let me take it for a little while, and then
bring it back to you? I was able to get David O. Russell.
After spending a lot of time with David, I just thought
he could make a version of this movie we hadn’t been
looking to make before. It would still be very real, but it
would have more heart, humor and emotion.
DeaDline: Thanks to the Internet, we all know how intense
Russell can be, as well as Christian Bale. How was the intensity
level and how did that affect your performance?
WahlbeRg: People expected all kinds of fireworks, but you
know what? That wasn’t going to go down. Christian felt
like David had a really good take on the film and on his part,
and we all felt that less was more when it came to the drugs
and the addiction thing. I tried to set the tone early on and
the vibe was good all the way through.
DeaDline: I’ve heard you gambled most of your salary on
the upside. When you work hard to establish a quote, what
goes through your mind when you consider taking a big cut to
get a picture made?
WahlbeRg: This wasn’t hard at all. If you make those
kinds of sacrifices for a good movie, all that other stuff
will continue to be there for you. I’m more nervous
about taking a big salary on a big-budget movie where, if
it doesn’t succeed, you’re in big trouble because you take
all that weight for its failure.
DeaDline: Was this the most adversity you’d experienced in
getting a movie to happen?
WahlbeRg: By far. I hope I never have to go through anything
like this again, even though the results were extremely
positive. It was nerve-racking, physically and mentally exhausting,
right down to the final hours. But that’s symbolic
of who Micky was, the guy who never gave up, who never
quit. Playing him, I literally got into that head space. I’m
like that anyway. I’m not one of those guys where they just
opened the gate and said, come in and do whatever you
want.
DeaDline: Amy Adams isn’t the first actress you think
of to play a scrappy Lowell barmaid. When did you know
she could nail this?
WahlbeRg: I’d met her a long time ago on another movie.
I knew she looked the part, that Irish Catholic girl from
Dorchester, Southie or Charlestown or any of those areas.
It was more a matter of her wanting to do it, as opposed
to any doubt she could. The role was actually very small,
but David really wanted to beef that part up to make the
movie more appealing to women. We thought all along that
guys would love this movie, but how were we going to get
women? Boy, did we get lucky there.
DeaDline: You suggested Melissa Leo to play Alice Ward, the
mother of Micky and Dicky. And Micky’s actual trainer Mickey
O’Keefe to play himself. And Sugar Ray Leonard to play himself.
WahlbeRg: Whatever needed to be done. I’ve always
thought of myself as someone with street smarts to make
stuff happen. When it came to Mickey O’Keefe and Melissa
Leo, there were a lot of other big names being talked about
who’d come in and think this is a chance to chew it up. But
that would have taken away from the authenticity of the
piece. With Mickey O’Keefe, I needed the real guy. Even if
he wasn’t going to be good in the performance, he would be
believable working in the ring with me during the training.
He ended up being so good.
DeaDline: Did using fight guys speed up the process?
WahlbeRg: Some directors we talked to about doing the
movie said there’s no way you can do this in 33 days. You’ll
need 30 days just to shoot the fights. I’m like, what are we
going to do for 30 days? Rub oil on each other, put the dolly
in the ring, and all this craziness? We were using real fighters
who weren’t messing around. I thought we could do those
fights in a day or two but added a day to be safe. We got it
done in those three days.
DeaDline: What about The Fighter made you most proud?
WahlbeRg: Just getting it made, in what I think is
the best possible version of the movie. Getting David
to direct, getting Christian on board. The first time I
screened the movie, I was just looking but not really
watching. I was just so shocked we’d actually gotten
it done. I needed to see it again, right away, because I
hadn’t paid attention to whether it was any good or not.
I watched it and thought, wow, we’ve really got something
here. Keeping my word with Mickey was great,
and having Paramount say, you were right, we love the
way you did it. It’s as much their movie as mine. We all
went down this road, along with David Hoberman and
Todd Lieberman. And Relativity was willing to step up
to the plate and believe in it and me. To go through all
that and then see people respond to the drama and the
fights, and feel that buzz build. This doesn’t happen
that often and I’ve been on the other side, where you
had the best intentions going in and things just don’t
work out the way you want.
tHe SoCIaL netWoRk
Mike De Luca, one of the producers with Scott
Rudin and Dana Brunetti of The Social Network:
“Dana had a relationship with author Ben
Mezrich and got the proposal for The Accidental
Billionaires, and it suggested a great story of how
Facebook came together and changed the lives of
these guys. Dana brought me in, we brought it
to Sony, and they went for it. At the same time,
Scott was tracking it and had Aaron Sorkin, and
Amy suggested we all team up.”
“The film traffics in a human condition that
could apply to any young person being told, ‘Stay
in this box, do it our way.’ There’s an inclination
to rebel. There are other underlying things powering
the story, like the basic human need to belong,
how painful it is to feel alienated, and the
jealousy that erupts among close friends when it
looks like one is pulling away.”
“I’ve never thought intelligence was age-related.
Here, the issues of alienation and jealousy speak to
a generation of Facebook-ing kids. There is cyberbullying,
having your life play out online, and seeing
instantly what people say and think of you. Social
Network is a good story with human experience
connective tissue that makes it ageless.”
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