SAG Awards: ‘The Fighter’ sisters were just protecting family

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Some of the most memorable combat in the ‘The Fighter’ happened outside the boxing ring -- when Amy Adams tussled with Dendrie Taylor, who played one of the harpy sisters of Mark Wahlberg’s struggling boxer. ‘We found out that we’re both dancers so that’s how we did the scene, just like it was a dance, we counted it out -- punch, hair pull, punch, down to the ground, one, two, three.’

Taylor look puzzled for a moment when told that the on-screen sisters and mother represented a memorable coven of big-hair and big-voices. ‘Well, they’re real and they love family and they’ll protect their family no matter what.’

She said that in her 25-year career, she never worked on a project that was as satisfying as David O. Russell’s Massachusetts family study. ‘There was a scene in the kitchen and I had some knitting and I asked David if I could knit and he surprised me by saying yes. My character is a brawler, but she still knits a baby blanket and when you see the film and the way David presented it, it’s perfect. There’s a phone cord you see in the scene too -- I didn’t notice it until I watched the movie -- and the way it cuts the screen is perfect. It links us [visually] -- It’s a close knit family.’

-- Geoff Boucher

[For the Record: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to Dendrie Taylor as Deirdre Taylor.]