Commercial fishing and my career in Hollywood are forever joined. I grew up in the seaport of New Bedford, Mass. It is also the primary location in my current film Finestkind. Oscar Helgeland, my Norwegian-born grandfather, moved there after the Stock Market Crash in 1929 put an abrupt end to his career as the captain of a wealthy Manhattanite’s Hudson River-based yacht. The story of him not understanding what a local mobster meant by “boat insurance” (and the subsequent explanation) was an early, oft-told tale among many I heard growing up.

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