Elizabeth Mair's interview with John Patrick Shanley, who visits the Writers Institute on Wednesday April 6, appeared in Sunday's Times Union.
Picture: Shanley with Meryl Streep at a screening party for Doubt at the Motion Pictures Academy.
Mair /Times Union: You've said that your childhood in the Bronx involved "constant fistfights." Why was that?
A: It was an Irish and Italian neighborhood -- probably more Irish than Italian -- and the Irish like to fight.
Q: Yourself included?
A: I was in fistfights from the time that I was 6 years old. Usually a couple of times a week. It was like a job.
Q: What would you fight for?
A: I was fighting to defend myself, for the most part. I didn't start spontaneously hitting people until later. Until I was about 15, I had to be hit first.
Q: In your Oscar acceptance for "Moonstruck," you thanked all the people who had ever punched or kissed you --
A: "Everybody who ever punched me or kissed me, and everybody who I ever punched or kissed."
Q: I understand the kiss part, but why the punch part?
A: Well, it's contact. It's somebody reaching out to you -- or for you. And it's a form of sincerity. More.
