If the blue Huskies T-shirt, jacket, cap, and 2023 championship towel (a gift from basketball guard Joey Calcaterra\u2019s mom) aren\u2019t enough of a giveaway, Ethan J. Antonucci \u201999 (CLAS) is amped up to talk endlessly (his words) about his alma mater allegiance. With an ear-to-ear grin, the Hollywood writer and producer admits he\u2019s even placed bets on his beloved Huskies over the years \u2014 one year paying off his wife Aimee\u2019s student loans. \u201cI always hold it over her head that my school paid for her school\u2019s loans,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
Antonucci wants you to know that his unintentional winding journey from sportswriter to literary agent, TV writer, producer, family man, and proud savior of his hometown cinema was propelled by a series of pivotal and serendipitous moments \u2014 a fateful snowstorm, prescient advice, a clipping from the Los Angeles Times, and the lure of free pizza among them.<\/p>\n
Let it snow<\/strong> The pizza that changed everything<\/strong> During his prolific sportswriting period, Antonucci made a vow to watch the American Film Institute\u2019s Top 100 list of movies. \u201cI considered myself a film buff but had only seen 18 or 19 of the movies,\u201d he remembers. \u201cThen I thought it would be funny to see how many top 100 movie references I could incorporate into every article I wrote. I was figuring out creative ways to do it, starting with obvious ones like \u2018Rocky.\u2019 I just sort of rolled with it.\u201d<\/p>\n The pinnacle and the epiphany<\/strong> Inside \u201cOutside Providence\u201d<\/strong> He landed a job in the mailroom of the Gersh Agency, and a year and a half later, his prediction came true. In an odd twist of fate, Antonucci met Hatosy, who was dating a close friend\u2019s stepsister. The two hit it off, and their bond became a creative one when Hatosy recruited Antonucci to co-write a screenplay \u2014 his first official foray into screenwriting after years of reading scripts as a literary agent at Gersh, where he had swiftly risen from the mailroom. While the 2007 writers\u2019 strike put their creative relationship on hold, the experience primed Antonucci for his biggest break yet in the industry.<\/p>\n
\nIn his senior year of high school, a planned visit to Emerson College in Boston was scrapped due to a harrowing snowstorm. \u201cWe made it maybe 5 miles from our house and there was already 3 or 4 inches of snow piling up on the road,\u201d recalls Antonucci. His parents, both schoolteachers, had only a limited window in which to make college visits. The snowstorm had other ideas. \u201cConnecticut kind of kept me from leaving Connecticut in the strangest of ways,\u201d Antonucci reflects about serendipitously missing out on his first-choice school.<\/p>\n
\nAntonucci enrolled at UConn to study communications, but sophomore year a professor convinced him to add a journalism major. Two weeks later, he found himself at an open house for the student paper, primarily enticed by the promise of free pizza. Within days he was covering women\u2019s polo for The Daily Campus. He eventually became the sports editor, a road games warrior clocking 44,000 miles in two years.<\/p>\n
\nHis senior year, UConn won its first men\u2019s basketball national title. This pinnacle moment marked the end of an era for \u00adAntonucci. He was done with sportswriting. \u201cThis was a team that I had followed for literally my entire cognizant life. And here they were winning the national title. I\u2019m standing right next to everybody on the team. I have a piece of the net that\u2019s, like, my most prized possession. I thought, it\u2019s just not going to get any better than this, so I don\u2019t want to do this anymore. I want to go work in Hollywood.\u201d He remembers his journalism advisor Wayne Worcester hearing his plans and dryly telling him, \u201cWell, somebody\u2019s gotta do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe last movie he saw before leaving Connecticut for Los Angeles was 1999\u2019s \u201cOutside Providence,\u201d which evoked a prophecy about actor Shawn Hatosy. \u201cI said to my buddy, \u2018When I get to LA, I swear I\u2019m going to meet the lead of this movie, and I have a feeling we\u2019re gonna work together some day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n