Straight from Southie: A Sit Down with Tim Cochran

From the local bar where everyone knows your name in Cheers to the die-hard Celtics fans who kidnap the Utah Jazz’s best player in order to win the championship in Celtic Pride to the story of two cops on opposite sides of the Boston Mafia in The Departed, a depiction of Boston’s Irish tradition and blue-collar attitude has been portrayed for decades on TV and on the big screen. However, with stories being consistently stretched for the sake of entertainment, is this an accurate image of Boston? While interviewing people who have taken part in the production of these Boston movies and TV shows may be the best way to get an idea of just how accurate these films are, sometimes it’s best to simply ask someone right from the heart of Boston; Someone who could paint the perfect picture of life in Boston and tell whether or not Hollywood got it right in TV shows and movies. Enter Tim Cochran.

Tim is a junior at Endicott College with a Criminal Justice major and a minor in Security Studies. Although he currently lives in North Reading, Tim and his family are originally from Charlestown. Just how involved in his Irish Boston heritage is Tim? Tim made it visibly obvious how much it meant to him when I had asked Tim to participate in this interview in person. The minute he heard me mention Boston movies, his eyes widened and he smiled. Tim was beyond excited to discuss one of his supposedly favorite forms of entertainment. Tim’s intense amount of pride in his Irish heritage and origin was also apparent from just how quickly Tim showed me his family coat of arms. A quick couple of clicks on his phone and Tim was showing me a white shield with three boars divided by a red arrow in it. On top of the shield was a helmet similar to the one on my coat of arms. I had felt inclined to take out my phone and show him my own family coat of arms as well: a similar shield and helmet, but with four squares that had a lion, a hand extending a cross out of the clouds, a ship, and a fish jumping out of the water.

This would eventually lead into us sharing stories back and forth about our families, including how we both looked forward to spending St. Patrick’s Day in Boston this year. For Tim, it was a bar-hop around Boston and a stop by the parade. For me, St. Patty’s Day meant a Dropkick Murphy’s concert at the TD Bank Garden with some of my cousins and my father (a McDonnell tradition for the last couple of years now). However, we had both agreed that the Charles River was naturally green in the first place and that they really didn’t need to color it green for St. Patrick’s Day.

Together, Tim and I were able to share a moment of pride to be a part of the blue-collar Irish tradition in the North Shore. This pride in coming from a line of hard working Irish immigrants who came into Boston and made the most out of what they had. The true question is whether or not this feeling was accurately depicted by Hollywood. We sat there in my dorm room, ironically decorated with Red Sox and Bruins memorabilia, a Boondock Saints poster, and, as we drank Arnold Palmer out of Celtics mugs, we started to discuss Boston on the big screen.

Tim has always been a big fan of Boston movies. In particular, he is fond of the ones that are related to or centered around the Boston Mafia. This, as he discussed later, was most likely because of his family’s long line of police officers in Boston. He looked up to the ceiling as he tried to think of some of his favorites: Boondock Saints (both the first and the sequel), The Departed, and The Town. However, Tim also stated a certain disinterest in the Boston movies and shows that, in Tim’s words, “are more focused on character plot and some kind of a love story instead of stuff that relates to Boston.” Tim provided examples such as Fever Pitch, where, although heavily focused on a man’s die-hard obsession with the Red Sox, heavily plays on a love story behind it. There was also Legally Blonde, where a blonde sorority girl from California gets into Harvard to try and win back her ex-boyfriend. To me, this meant nothing but accuracy and cooperation. I began to feel completely confident and secure in how much thought and consideration Tim gave in analyzing Boston movies. With such a passion for Boston TV shows and movies based off of living in Boston as well as an intense pride in his Boston Irish origins, Tim was the perfect person to interview to get a true snapshot of not only life in Boston, but whether “Hollywood’s” take on it could be anything close to a true depiction of actual life in Boston.  

One interpretation includes the making of a Whitey Bulger movie. The project, entitled Black Mass, picked up interest after the capture of Whitey Bulger in June of 2011. The movie on Boston’s father of crime is in the process of being produced by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who are both very famously well known for their production and acting in award-winning Boston films such as The Departed, Good Will Hunting, and The Town. Tim, an avid fan of all the movies that had been done by Affleck and Damon, gave his take on a Whitey Bulger movie, which includes his take on the unorthodox concept of Johnny Depp now playing the role of Whitey Bulger.

Casey – So, Tim, tell me about your family and living in Charlestown. Got any good stories to tell there?

Tim – Well, it was pretty cool. It started off when my Papa was a Boston Police Department motorcycle cop. He would work the gate of The Garden back in the day. Then, when my dad got out of the Army in ’80, he got a job with his two sisters at Fenway. He was in charge of guarding the money and even got to write his name inside of the Green Monster.

C- That’s pretty sick. Any perks like tickets or something like that?

T- Tickets no, but my Papa did get to meet Carl Yastrzemski and they even became friends, so I got a bunch of autographed bats, balls and stuff like that. He had even given my grandmother some jewelry as well.

C – Okay, so I want to get an idea of your kind of movies to get started. It’ll be fun. You’ve seen the video on YouTube, “Shit Boston Guys (Massholes) Say”. They make a list of the top five actors of all time in their, which includes Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Mark Wahlberg, Casey Affleck, and Donnie Wahlberg. Give me your top five actors right now.

T-(Laughs) Okay, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Tom Hanks, and Clint Eastwood.

C- Alright then. I like the classics. Definitely nothing like "what Massholes say". What are some of your favorite and least favorite Boston movies then?

T – Well, I really like Good Will Hunting and both the Boondock Saints movies just because I find them incredibly enjoyable films. The Boondock Saints movies are two of the few movies in Hollywood that actually portray accurate use of firearms (most of the time). I also like the interviews they do in Boston at the end of the film. One of the worst Boston movies I can think of is The Zoo Keeper. It was just annoying and, like those other movies I mentioned before, it really had nothing to do with Boston. It just felt like a random setting for a really dumb movie.

C- Okay, let me ask you about this one: the Whitey Bulger movie. What do you think?

T- Whitey was a rat who lied and sold out his own men. He used the law to eliminate opponents. They’re probably going to Hollywood up the movie, make it so that there’s more untruth then truth, like they always do, and people will see it and think that’s what happened. I hate when people do that.

C- Perfect lead. So you feel that when there’s a little bit of a cinematic altering of reality, it ruins the movie?

T- Sometimes. It’s something like this where the story is twisted for the sake of making entertainment. Other times, especially with the movies we’re talking about, it’s the little things. Like, my mom is quick to point out how no one calls it The Town (based off the movie on Charlestown titled The Town). It’s “C-Town”. There are also a lot of inaccuracies in that movie. They show Old Sully’s Exterior but its New Sully’s Interior. They show Ben Affleck walking around with the money going from street to street, where those streets aren’t connected or anywhere near each other. Then the final heist, where Fenway cash room is filled with three Yankee games worth of cash? Bullshit, my dad worked in the cash room; it gets emptied every three innings.

C- Well, how important are those little things in the long run?

T- Honestly, not too much. Yeah, it bugs me because I know the reality in situations like those, but these are all things that don’t really affect the story as opposed to what I was getting at with Whitey’s movie and how they would twist up this whole plot just for entertainment.

C- Now, I want to get back to the Whitey Bulger movie if we can for a second. It is another movie produced and worked on by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and all the actors from around Boston that have a feel for the culture here. However, there’s news coming out that Johnny Depp is going to potentially be the one to play Whitey. Do you think this will work or is it going to ruin the true feel of the movie?

T- You know, I’m not sure what to think of Depp. I don’t know a lot about how they’re doing the film, but Depp’s last couple roles have been a little odd and...well, just plain different. If he put that "Tim Burton feel" (director, Edward Scissorhands) to Whitey? It should be interesting to see what happens.

C- Well if you could take anyone else to do it, who?

T- I did hear that if it wasn’t Depp, it would be Matt Damon, but I think Leo (DiCaprio) could do it.

C- Why Leo?

T- I mean, I know he doesn't get the same credit for Boston movies like Affleck and Damon, but I think he does a great job portraying a Bostonian in these movies. He was in Shutter Island, but I thought he was awesome in The Departed. His character was very believable to me.