It’s been a year since the critically acclaimed The Fighter first hit movie theaters. The film, starring Mark Wahlberg as Micky Ward, a real life Rocky character from Lowell, Massachusetts was nominated for many awards and brought Oscars to Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. For Bianca Hunter, Melissa McMeekin and Erica McDermott, it’s been over two years since their journey of becoming “sisters” and ultimately friends began. The trio played three of “The Fighter Sisters” with Hunter as Pork, McMeekin as Little Alice and McDermott as Tar Eklund, 3 of Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund’s sisters. Through vigorous auditions including a final 4 hour audition with director David O. Russell, the three women with teased hair, would become memorable characters that would change their lives. They talked to me about how their lives have changed (both good and bad) since their experiences making the film and after its release.
Melissa and Erica were both living in Massachusetts during casting and filming, but Bianca is a New Yorker. She left her family behind to join her new “family” on set. Ms. Hunter is the most experienced of the three having grown up in the entertainment industry somewhat and having multiple films under her belt and a Godmother who is an actress. The whole experience was rather new for Melissa and Erica yet all three had never seen anything quite like the casting process. They all had big, ugly hair, hadn’t really showered in a few days and kept getting brought in and told to leave the room with not one of them knowing for sure if they landed a role. But ultimately all three did and the rest is film history.
After the film’s premiere, it would start garnering award nominations. The film was up for many SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild) awards and the cast went out for the ceremony. For Melissa McMeekin, that was one of her personal favorite experiences. The actress couldn’t get over the fact that “I’m at the SAG Awards” and Bianca Hunter found it surreal. The sisters themselves would be nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight along with co-star Amy Adams, but would lose to one of the awful Twilight movies (my words, not theirs). Although Bianca would “threaten” Robert Pattinson telling the star that he “stole” their award. They would also travel to the Spike TV Guy’s Choice Awards where Mark Wahlberg was receiving a special award. He called his cast on stage and announced there will be a The Fighter 2, which I’m hoping focuses on Ward’s epic battles with Arturo Gatti.
Erica McDermott and Melissa McMeekin have become somewhat of local celebrities here in Boston. Both have done a lot with local charities and it was because of the Ellie Fund Oscar Party that I first got in touch with Erica who then got me to talk with Melissa and then Bianca. To this day Erica is very active in charity work having recently done an event with New England Patriots player Julian Edelman. Both will be working together again on Irish Whisper, a Boston production that is looking to become a pilot for HBO. It’s being directed by Ben Proulx who Melissa worked with on Visionary that she couldn’t talk highly enough about. And look for Melissa next year in Seth MacFarlane/Mark Wahlberg’s movie Ted, which shot here in Boston this summer.
As for Bianca Hunter, her story isn’t as smooth sailing as her “sisters”, but it too ends positively. After filming wrapped, she went back to New York and her marriage ended. As her professional career was gaining strides, her personal life was going through a very dark situation. But this piece being about actresses, Bianca is getting her Hollywood happy ending. She is now engaged to actor Robert MacNaughton or E.T. boy as Melissa jokingly calls him. Robert played Henry Thomas’ brother in the iconic E.T. and Bianca had met him in the late 80’s through Drew Barrymore. She was 17 and he was a few years older so it didn’t really go anywhere then, but they reconnected and being pushed by Melissa to speak with him, the couple will be getting married at Coney Island in New York. Tell me that’s not straight out of a movie script. She has also worked on the film Brutal starring Kevin Corrigan and Peter Greene since her time on The Fighter.
Being the Bale-head that I am, I have to share a story Ms. Hunter told me about Christian Bale. All three sisters have said how great Christian is around children, whether it was the boy playing his son in the film, a sick girl who was brought to set to meet him or Bianca’s own son who has a rare disease. She was showing pictures of her son to Christian when he noticed the boy was wearing a Batman t-shirt. He asked her why her son loved Batman and she wasn’t sure so she asked. When her son said it was because Batman was a real guy (no superpowers like other heroes), Christian seemed very impressed with her little man’s answer. How awesome is that, Bale after all IS Batman in the latest films.
This year Erica McDermott was selected as one of the voters for the upcoming SAG Awards. She was sent many of 2011’s best films and got to vote on who she thought was the best performers, films, casts of this year and seeing who she voted for and the actual nominations, she did quite well with her selections. Erica knows I also write movie reviews so we compared lists on Facebook.
All three actresses are moms and love to talk about their kids and families. They all interact with one another even two years later with Melissa and Bianca‘s families vacationing together. Melissa said it was fun to go to all the award ceremonies, but what she’s proud of the most is gaining sisters. Erica calls it the gift that keeps on giving and even though Bianca can question if not doing the film would have saved her marriage, she’s very happy with the friends she’s made and experiences she’s had since. All three look to do more work (they mentioned pilot season coming up) and they eagerly await getting a script for the sequel. Erica would love to do a kids movie that her daughters can watch and I guarantee all of them would work with each other again as “sisters“ or not. So hopefully when they get the script for the sequel, they will let us know and we can start counting down the days for the second story of one of New England’s best films.
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