Brian Scalabrine first burst onto the scene in Boston as the ultimate cheerleader—a red-headed reserve player who became the secret weapon of the 2008 championship team. He never touched the court in the playoffs, yet somehow turned professional benchwarming into must-see television. Now, years into his second act as NBC Sports Boston’s team analyst, we asked him about the mentors who taught him to entertain, not educate, his most extravagant sneaker splurges, and why failure was actually the key to his success.

You’ve been on both sides of the game—as a player, as a coach, and now behind the mike. How different is it to narrate the action versus actually living it?
Well, learning curves are all dictated by who’s around you. And first of all, I had Tommy Heinsohn, who was the biggest straight shooter you’ll ever find in your entire life, telling me exactly what I needed to do on a daily basis. We used to sit down and have dinner together, and if I was being too technical about pick and rolls and single side bumps, he would just be like, “Scal, people don’t wanna hear about that garbage. It’s not a basketball video. Just make people laugh and be entertaining.” So I had a constant supply of that from Tommy. And Mike [Gorman] was the same way. Mike was way more diplomatic about it, like maybe we should focus on this and that. I’m also not me if not for my producer, Paul Lucey, who’s been producing games for thirtysomething years, and an 80-year-old man named Jim Edmonds, who’s also my producer and a straight shooter. So you get this guy who loves basketball, and he gets inserted with no experience whatsoever with a bunch of people who just nudged him exactly the right way to become the broadcaster he needed to become. I probably would’ve failed in this business if it wasn’t for those four people who were exactly what I needed. Let’s be honest, I played basketball in the ’90s and 2000s, right, so straight shooter is really the only language that I understand.

In some alternate universe where you never picked up a basketball, what do you think you’d be doing right now?
That’s really hard because I actually never thought I was gonna make the NBA. It was all about being a coach. My whole life, all I wanted to do was be a history teacher and coach basketball, and then see where it could take me. My goal was to play as long as I possibly could, so it would help my résumé for me to become a coach. But I fell in love with the game at such an early age that it was never a question. Anybody who knew me growing up knew that I would be involved in basketball.

You’re from Enumclaw, Washington, which I’m guessing isn’t exactly the Seaport or the North End. What was the most thrilling thing that ever went down there?
Well, you know the kid Kasey Kahne, who used to race in NASCAR, he’s from Enumclaw as well. But it’s a small town at the base of Mount Rainier. The story of me really starts with my parents moving right across the street from a park. And I lived at that park for six to eight hours every single day, in the summertime maybe more; during the school year, I’d go home when it was 11 o’clock at night. And whether I was playing one-on-one, two-on-two, or three-on-three, I was living there. You know the 10,000 hours rule? Well, I was more like 20,000 or 30,000 hours, and that’s probably how I ended up making it.

Give me one line each: Nets, Celtics, Bulls—how would you describe them?
The Nets were great because I was a rotational player on a championship team. We didn’t win it, but we went to the Finals. I learned a lot that I needed to know about the NBA, playing with Jason Kidd. The Celtics were amazing because of the teammates, winning a championship, and the relationship that I have with the city. And then the Bulls, Tom Thibodeau brought me in to be a mentor. And it really sparked that inner desire—you know, I love the game as a player, but I also love the game as a mentor and teacher to keep guys accountable.

You had a few nicknames over the years—“Veal,” “White Mamba.” Which one did you prefer?
I like White Mamba—it’s a good nickname. There’s a lot of funny parodies involved, and I think that people like to know that I’m cool with the parody jokes.

Did you ever try to work “White Mamba” into a pickup line?
[Laughs.] I’ve been married since before I was the White Mamba, so I’m gonna have to say no on that one.

What’s the best piece of swag from your NBA career?
My favorite thing is we have a warmup jacket with every one of the banners on it. I think it’s one of the coolest things the Celtics have ever made.

Are you a sneaker freak?
A little bit, but not crazy.

What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a pair of sneakers?
$180.

That’s…surprisingly reasonable.
Yeah, I usually buy when the Jordans go on sale. But there were some Jordan 3s that had a great color combination I was looking for, and I splurged on them for full price. It’s the only time I’ve ever paid full price for a pair of shoes.

What’s the best basketball game you’ve ever experienced, on the court or off?
I think the best I’ve ever played was Game 5 against Detroit in 2004. It was like a triple-overtime game where everyone fouled out, and I was just banging down threes in overtime. The exhilaration of that and the magnitude of it were phenomenal. Best game I’ve ever watched—I think the most excited I’ve ever been was the Jayson Tatum dunk over LeBron game, so that would be Game 7 of the Conference Finals. Tatum was a rookie, no Kyrie, no Gordon Hayward, no one thought this team would ever be able to do it. And I was certain when Tatum had that dunk that the Celtics were going to the Finals.

Which NBA venue has the best home-court advantage?
It’s all day Boston. Everybody I talk to always privately—they won’t do it publicly—they always talk to me about the Boston crowd. They’re like, “Is it like this every night?” and I’m like, “Yeah.” We are so spoiled, because I go to a lot of the other arenas, and it’s just okay, but Boston is completely different.

And that’s because of the fans?
Oh my God, yeah, I was in the building the year after COVID, but there were no fans. The Garden is not the Garden without the fans’ uniqueness and the way they dress up and paint their face—they’re all part of the show, and it’s really cool. It’s not like that everywhere.

What was the worst injury of your career?
After I was done playing in the NBA, I got my tooth knocked out during a pickup game, and it was by far the worst, because it takes maybe 10 to 15 different surgical procedures to get a tooth back—it would’ve been less rehab for an ACL. I’m telling you, it’s crazy how many appointments you have to do just to get your smile back right.

Who is the player you admire the most?
So Kevin Garnett is an incredible human being. The guy cared about everyone in the organization. I also got a chance to coach Steph Curry, and I never met a player who, whatever is going on, doesn’t really get caught up in all the drama. It was really eye-opening to see a star player just literally not be affected by all the crazy noise of the NBA.

How exhausting is playing an NBA game—physically, emotionally, all of it?
When you’re in the NBA, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing—when the lights go on and the ball is tipped, you can compartmentalize all of it. The only thing that you can really feel is injuries, but everything else goes away. I find it really amazing how athletes who play professional sports can block out the world and then focus in—not on the game, because that sounds like that’s a two-and-a-half-hour process. They can focus in on the second, make a read in that moment, and nothing else in their life matters, whether they’re exhausted or not.

What’s your take—are NBA players making too much money?
I mean, it’s the percentage of the revenue coming in, so no, I don’t think they’re overpaid.

Outside of basketball, what sports do you follow closely?
Uh, nothing, really.

Really?
Yeah, nothing. My life is all basketball. I don’t do anything else. I don’t know anything else.

Any regrets about your facial-hair choices over the years?
They’re based on laziness. It’s not a choice. It’s like choosing to shave or not shave, you know, but yeah, I mean, who doesn’t regret certain ways they look throughout the years?

Do you wear your championship ring?
I don’t wear it that often. I should wear it more. You know, to galas and stuff like that, but I don’t wear it as much as I should.

What’s your favorite basketball movie or show?
You know, I gotta be honest with you. I’m really turned off by basketball movies. I think when I grew up, I watched the movie Heaven Is a Playground probably 50 times, but now that I’ve experienced it, I’m a little turned off by it.

What’s your best advice for a kid who dreams of the NBA but doesn’t think they have a shot?
Yeah, you know I get this question a lot right now. Here’s the thing—I would never want to tell that kid something where he could skip a step. I think the reason why I made it is because everyone thought I wasn’t gonna make it. If I go and tell that kid he’s gonna make it, I’m not sure that kid does make it. I’m a success from my failures, so I wouldn’t want to try to curb those failures. If there was a way to go back and tell my eight-year-old self, like, you’re probably not gonna make it, that would be the best advice I could possibly give, because once you think you’re not, and you work like you’re not, when you finally do, the work habits are already established. So I would not want to go back and mess up my eight-year-old self. I don’t think I can replicate my life and make it better, given the circumstances, and end up in a better position than I am right now. I think I could only mess it up.

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By the Numbers

Off-Court Champs

The numbers you need to know about the legendary voices of Celtics glory.

43

Years Mike Gorman spent as the Celtics’ play-by-play announcer—the longest
tenure in franchise history.

~2,800

Number of games Mike Gorman and Tommy Heinsohn broadcast together, one of the most enduring partnerships in sports television.

2

Number of Curt Gowdy Media Awards won by Celtics announcers: radio legend Johnny Most (37 years, 1953–1990) and Gorman.

10

Number of games per season Hall of Famer Bob Cousy called as a part-time Celtics analyst from 1999 to 2008.

13

Years Brian Scalabrine has been a Celtics commentator and analyst—and counting.

Seth Moulton has made a career of picking fights with fellow Democrats—challenging Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, calling for generational change, and refusing to fall in line on cultural debates. So when he announced that he was running against Ed Markey in the 2026 Senate primary, the move felt practically inevitable. The four-tour Iraq veteran, North Shore native and current Salem resident is now making his case for the Senate at a moment when Massachusetts voters are squeezed by costs and increasingly skeptical of anyone in office. We recently spoke with him about term limits, trans sports, Ron DeSantis’s social skills, and whether he’d ever run for president again.

What’s the oddest interaction you’ve ever had on Capitol Hill?
There are, sadly, a number of disreputable people in Congress, but the guy who literally couldn’t even say hi to you was Ron DeSantis when he was in the House.

Aside from family and friends, what’s the thing you miss most about Boston when you’re in DC?
There’s nothing better in Boston than a Sox game in the summer.

People describe DC as a hornet’s nest, a snake pit, a shark tank, a cesspool, a swamp, whatever. What metaphor do you think applies to Washington?
[They say] it was built on a swamp, and sometimes I question George Washington’s judgment in putting it there, but I keep it in perspective by reminding myself that nothing in DC is as hard as Iraq.

What was it that led you to join the Marines just days after graduating from Harvard?
It was Reverend Peter Gomes and his challenge to us students to serve, to do something, to give back. He wasn’t advocating specifically for military service, but when I looked at all the different ways I could serve, I just had so much respect for the 18-year-old kids who put their lives on the line for our country that I felt I should do my part, too.

What was the scariest experience that you had in Iraq?
Well, unfortunately, I had a lot, and I don’t like telling war stories, so I won’t go into the details, but I’ll just tell you that I consider myself lucky to have come back in one piece and think all the time about the guys I served with who did not.

What is the most important lesson that you brought back with you from your military service?
That there are extraordinary Americans who come from wildly different backgrounds all across the country serving together. I mean, my platoon had rich and poor, Black and white, gay and straight. We had different religious beliefs, different political beliefs, and yet we were able to set aside those differences to do what was right for the country. And I want to see more of that kind of leadership and service in America today, including in our Congress.

You majored in physics—do you still read about physics, or do you follow physics magazines?
I don’t read physics magazines, but I love science and keep up with it in the news. I wasn’t smart enough to be a physicist, so here I am in Congress.

What led you to make the decision to run against U.S. Senator Ed Markey this year?
We can’t afford to wait six more years for new leadership in the commonwealth or the country.

Do you think that’s one of the biggest problems in Washington right now—stagnation?
I do. And stagnation is an especially big problem with the Democratic Party. I mean, we’ve seen the results with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Dianne Feinstein, and Joe Biden, but we’ve also seen the results on the other side with Zohran Mamdani, Mikie Sherrill, and Abigail Spanberger, who all won huge Democratic victories as next-generation leaders willing to challenge the party establishment.

How do you feel about term limits?
I think we should have them, but I think we should pair them with campaign finance reform. Term limits tend to be more popular with Republicans, campaign finance reform tends to be more popular with Democrats, but both are widely popular with the American people, so each side could eat a little crow and do something good for Congress that will finally raise our esteem in the eyes of the people we represent. Right?

And Ed Markey has been in office for quite some time.
I respect his service, and I’ve voted for him in the past myself. I just think it’s time for new leadership. And with all due respect, he’s been elected longer than I’ve been alive.

Do you think bipartisanship is possible today, given the climate?
Yes, it is. I passed 988 [through the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act] under the first Trump administration by finding a Republican veteran I could work with. So it’s hard, but it’s necessary if we want to truly serve our constituents.

In 2024, you introduced the American High-Speed Rail Act, which proposes $205 billion in federal funding to create a national high-speed rail network. Right now, do you think that American rail lines are up to snuff?
Absolutely not. American rail service is pathetic, and it should be the best in the world. I mean, so many Americans don’t realize what we’re missing, and we should be able to get around the country faster than driving without squeezing yourself into a pressurized aluminum tube 30,000 feet in the air and hoping the door doesn’t blow out.

What part of your district intrigues you the most?
The city of Lynn, because it’s bursting with potential, but Lynners need more opportunities. A great example is the fact that Lynn is the same distance from downtown Boston as Brooklyn is from downtown Manhattan—same distance by train—but Lynn has one train an hour in the middle of the day, and Brooklyn has about one train a minute. My regional rail plan would do wonders for opportunity and economic development, and in Lynn and so many cities like it around the commonwealth.

Besides rail lines, what are the top three other things about infrastructure in the United States—bridges, roads, highways—that you think are most pressing?
We need to build more carbon-free energy infrastructure to bring down energy prices. And we’ve clearly failed to do that in Massachusetts, because energy bills are sky high, and people are turning down their thermostats this winter to save money. We also need to completely rebuild our education infrastructure. Here’s an example: Kids are voting with their feet today, standing in lines outside of vocational schools, because they know these jobs will not be automated out of existence. And the older generation in Massachusetts is debating how to ration these seats rather than building more to serve our kids.

What questions or requests do you most commonly hear from your constituents?
Right now? It’s all about affordability. People are understandably concerned that they won’t be able to afford healthcare. They won’t be able to pay their electricity bill.

Do you think that some form of compulsory public service should become part of the United States’ culture, even if it’s not military?
I don’t think national service should be compulsory, but I do think it should be expected that we all do something to give back to this great country, and that would not mean expanding the ranks of our military. It would mean dramatically expanding the opportunities for civilian service—Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, City Year.

You have always been very vocal about your opinion on the Iraq War. Looking back at what happened and the outcome, and having served four tours, can you encapsulate your view of the Iraq War?
Well, I ran for Congress because I saw the consequences of failed leadership in Washington over four tours in Iraq, and today I’m gravely concerned we’re going to play this movie again with Venezuela, which is why I wrote the legislation to prevent any funds from supporting ground operations in Venezuela.

Do you view China as our biggest rival or our biggest enemy?
As opposed to Venezuela? Yes.

Could you ever see China becoming a close ally?
It’s not impossible, but one of the biggest problems with our China policy is that we don’t have a long-term vision for where this will be in 30 years. But in the meantime, we have to do everything we can to deter and prevent a war with China. And getting distracted in Venezuela does not help, right?

So a recent controversy you were in was the whole trans sports question. Do you feel that your words were sort of twisted or misinterpreted?
I have a 100 percent voting record on trans rights, but I don’t believe we serve any minority we’re working to protect if we’re not willing to take on their issues and have tough conversations. Because otherwise, the only ones who set the agenda are the Republicans with hateful policies, which is exactly what we’ve seen in this Congress.

So was there any lingering bad blood between you and Nancy Pelosi?
It was tough for a time, but I’ve always heard that she has great respect for me because I’m willing to challenge the status quo when so many aren’t, and I feel the same way about her. We had a really lovely conversation about Christmas with our families on the House floor just yesterday.

What about presidential aspirations?
Been there, tried that. I’m amazed you remember.

Well, who do you see as the frontrunner in the next election cycle?
Look, I think it’s important for the next generation of leaders to rise up, and that’s why people, including a past president, encouraged me to run several years ago, but I think it would be a huge mistake to designate that person now. We tried that in 2024, and it didn’t work out well for us. We need to win the midterms and then use that as a blueprint for 2028.

What is your single favorite thing about Salem?
Not the witches. Salem is so much more than Halloween. The Peabody Essex Museum is amazing. The restaurants are amazing, and it’s a great city to raise a family.

What is the one headline that you’d most like to read?
The headline I’d most like to see is, “School shootings are down 1,000 percent because we finally got weapons of war off our streets.”

What was the most emotional or heart-wrenching interaction that you’ve had with a constituent?
It’s meeting constituents whose sons or daughters have died from gun violence, because there are absolutely things we can do to prevent it. But it’s one of the best examples of how cowardly the Republicans in Congress are today.

Who is the person from history that you’d most like to have met?
Teddy Roosevelt. He was a Republican, but he was a progressive champion who was always willing to challenge the status quo. And he seemed to always have a good time doing it. The other person that I would have really liked to meet was Frederick Douglass, because I’ve always admired people who have political courage, and the influence he had, given where he began his life, took an unbelievable amount of courage, politically and otherwise.

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By the Numbers

The Moulton File

Five stats on the candidate.

3

Number of degrees Moulton has from Harvard—BA, MBA, and MPP.

4

Number of tours Moulton served in Iraq as a Marine infantry officer.

7

Number of glasses of milk Moulton drank a day when he was in grad school at Harvard.

123

Number of days Moulton spent running for president in 2019.

2,116,539

Amount, in dollars, Moulton had raised for his Senate run through the end of 2025.

An earlier version of this article was first published in the print edition of the February 2026 issue with the headline: “The Challenger.”

You’re best known for your work on “the Singularity”—the point of accelerating technological change when human intelligence merges with AI. What connection do you see between this concept and the challenge of extending human longevity?
Singularity includes longevity. We’re already making very substantial gains in terms of overcoming health problems. Right now, if we come up with a new cure or treatment, it has to undergo human testing, and that could take years. We’re moving toward being able to simulate this using computers, which can be done in days. For example, with the COVID vaccine, they tried out thousands of formulations and did it in two days; otherwise, it would’ve taken years. This is going to be done for everything [as part of the AI revolution]. It’s not fully there yet, but it will be there in about five years.

You’ve popularized the concept of “longevity escape velocity”—in the simplest terms, what exactly is the theory, and why do you believe we’re so close to reaching it?
Eventually, [medical advancements] will be able to overcome what causes our bodies to expire. Right now, if you use up a year of your longevity, you’re a year older. But by 2032, you’ll gain back one year for each year lived. Beyond that, you’ll actually get back more than a year. It doesn’t guarantee immortality; accidents can happen, but we’re also reducing accidents. For example, the 40,000 deaths a year we have from humans driving cars, we’ll be able to reduce through automated driving.

You’re well known for your personal longevity routine. What are some of the things you do to stay healthy?
I do TPE, therapeutic plasma exchange, on a regular basis. Plasma holds toxins, and if you never replace it, it gets more and more filled with toxins. This process replaces the plasma in your blood with plasma that’s free of toxins. Also, my father died at age 58 of heart disease. We didn’t have the ability to control it back then. Right now, we have something called Repatha, which is an injection, so my LDL cholesterol, which is the bad, is now 10. I have no plaque because of this treatment. Then I take maybe 70 or 80 supplements a day, some through injections.

For the average person who simply wants to live a longer, healthier life, what is the most encouraging message you can share about the future of medicine?
AI is merging with medicine, so breakthroughs will be exponential. You want to be as healthy as possible, and even if you have a disease, you want to slow it down, because new things will come up very quickly. We’re going to be able to try out a billion different solutions in one weekend, find one that works, and then test it on a million different humans in a matter of days, rather than years. Within seven years, we’re going to come up with things that will overcome disease very quickly.

This article was first published in the print edition of the February 2026 issue with the headline: “Forever Young?”

Charlie DeLoach never intended to serve on a jury, let alone one deciding arguably the state’s highest-profile murder case. An educator who grew up in the Bromley Heath public housing development in J.P., he’s spent more than three decades working with Boston kids and already had his hands full. But this past year, he found himself leading those deliberations after Judge Beverly Cannone tapped him as foreman in the second criminal trial of Karen Read, who was ultimately found not guilty of murder and manslaughter this past summer. As Read’s civil case ramps up, we sat down with DeLoach—and he didn’t disappoint.

What was your initial reaction when you got the jury summons? Were you going to try and avoid serving, or did you want to?
I was gonna do the old “Out of sight, out of mind” kind of thing. I had always tried to dodge it, so if they didn’t call me, or they didn’t come to my door knocking, they weren’t getting me.

So how did you become the foreman? How does that work?
I became the foreman because of Judge Beverly. She chose me. After they had their final statements and closing arguments, she said, “This is the time that I usually go over the law, and before that, I pick the foreman.” She said, “I select Juror One,” and I was like, “Okay.” She was like, “Oh, that’s a man who says yes before he even knows what he has to do.”

You had no idea what it entailed?
Not really. Actually, over the weekend, I looked it up before we started deliberating. We went in there around 2:20 p.m. [on Friday afternoon] for official deliberations, and probably by 2:45 p.m., all the evidence was in the room. Then we could finally talk about the case. I didn’t really know the true detail of it until the weekend.

What was the initial atmosphere like? Did you immediately take a vote? Did everybody declare what they thought, or did they keep their opinions to themselves?
We asked the question, “Does everybody want to vote now?” And a lot of people were like, “No.” So we started by looking at the evidence. And then I realized what a foreman does: organizing, keeping the process going, keeping the peace, and those kinds of things. Which is kind of what I do at work anyway.

I was going to ask if your work experience helped with being a foreman.
Oh, big time! Yes. Because I have to deal with a lot of different personalities all at once. So I had to figure that out. What I usually do is kind of stay low-key and just let whatever come my way and try to figure it out, instead of trying to be more aggressive about it. So I wasn’t like, “Oh, this is how we’re going to do it. This is how we’re going to lay it out.” And everybody was very helpful. When I felt like things were kind of going left or right, I’d try to reel it back in and make sure everybody was being heard, that everybody was listening when someone else was talking.

Did you all feel the public pressure, the people outside the courthouse watching and waiting?
You could see the presence of people outside. But did it sway the way I was going to determine my decision, or how I was going to vote? No, because I was just going to stick to the evidence and testimony and the stuff that went on in the courtroom. There was the pro-Karen group and the anti-Karen group, and I was like, “I get it. Everyone’s in an outrage.” But my job was to do whatever I could with what was in front of me.

How did you keep it all to yourself when you were with family or friends?
It was a lot of, “I just can’t talk about it.” That was my mindset because I wanted to be totally impartial in the decision that I made and make sure it wasn’t something coerced by someone telling me something. Boy, was I tempted to get on the Internet and just look up everything, but I was like, “I can’t. This is what they want us to look at, and there’s a reason why, so I’m just going to stick to it.” And then afterward, oh, was I surprised!

What did you find out afterward that surprised you the most?
Things from the first trial. We didn’t see the majority of the people that they called as witnesses. And I could see how the prosecution did not want us to see certain witnesses, how it would have skewed our judgment on things. And then just to hear everybody talking about what they thought happened inside the house, or what they thought really went on with John O’Keefe.

Were there any confrontations or raised tempers in the jurors’ room?
None whatsoever.

Wow! So everybody got along?
Yes, we did. It was comfortable to come to every day.

Were there any “Aha!” moments?
Well, I’d say the biggest thing for me was the [inverted] sallyport video [of Karen Read’s car being brought into the garage as evidence]. That was a real “Aha!” moment for me, for the defense. I was like, “Oh, now I see.”

How about the missing Ring footage from John O’Keefe’s house?
I was still open-minded; if the prosecution had something, I was open to seeing it. But the amount of evidence that was stacking up for Karen was getting higher. And then seeing the video of them putting the car on the tow truck, and the red light on the passenger side lit up, I was like, “Are we serious?” The exact piece that’s supposed to have been found in the snow is lit up. That gave me the insight that she didn’t hit him. And then all the other forensic people, not one definitively said, “This is how she hit him.” There was no consistent evidence, even with his injuries. Where was the bruising on his legs? There was none. So yeah, he could’ve got clipped, but to sustain an injury that makes you hit your head that hard, where you get a laceration to your skull? Come on.

Did Michael Proctor’s behavior or his texts factor into the deliberations at all?
No. I had to push past a lot of that, even though it was really, really unprofessional. I had to look at it as a lot of locker-room talk. Yeah, you have bias, but just because you’re biased doesn’t mean the person hit them or whatever, right? It just seemed like a bunch of unprofessional state troopers. But I couldn’t let that taint my opinion a certain way.

“I wish a lot of people were able to take the approach that I and the 17 other jurors took, how seriously we were seeking justice.”

Did the whole experience color your opinion of law enforcement, the judicial system, or police in general?
I mean, that’s two parts. One, I wish a lot of people were able to take the approach that I and the 17 other jurors took, how seriously we were seeking justice. Then there’s a regular Joe like me. I don’t have money like that to withstand two trials. There are going to be a lot of people worried that this is our justice system and how easily it can be swayed.

Did you and the rest of the jury think that there was someone else who could have done it?
I mean, I can’t say. There was something else that happened to him. We wanted to get into that part, trying to solve it. But that was not going to happen. I just made sure we stuck to the path so we didn’t go down all these rabbit holes endlessly. It wasn’t our job to solve the case. Our job was to look at the evidence and see if she was guilty of this crime.

Did Turtleboy help or hurt her case?
I didn’t know about Turtleboy until two weeks before the end of the trial. I didn’t know the impact of who he was. And again, they told me about Turtleboy, and I still didn’t look it up, so no.

What was the shadiest thing to you? [The Alberts’] Selling the house? The deleted texts? The missing dog?
The dog was probably number two. Number one was selling the house. Your family house? Like, why? And then you sold it for less than market value? What?

Ultimately, what made the murder and manslaughter charges not meet the burden of proof, while the operating under the influence charge did?
Well, if there’s no collision, there’s no manslaughter. No one felt that there was any evidence of that. We even wrote out the definition of everything. Reasonable cause. Manslaughter. OUI. We had all the definitions on the walls, so that anytime we got stuck, we could refer to them.

Are you still in touch with any of the other jurors?
Yes. We were supposed to get together for a reunion soon, but we all have each other’s numbers and everything.

Was there ever any intimidation involved? Did you ever feel like either side was a threat?
No, but there were a lot of journalists across the way, just looking at us. It wasn’t intimidating, but I just knew they were looking for any little thing, like, “Ooh, I saw a juror do this!” So I tried to stay stone-cold-faced, and my eyes were on the lawyers, or the witness, or the judge.

Is there anything that you’d do differently?
No, no. After looking at everything online and even just hearing other people, nothing really.

How has this affected your life?
In large part, it hasn’t really affected my life. Even during the trial, I still went to work if it was a day off from court. I was back working with the kids. I mean, certain people, friends, family, coworkers, and their wives want to know my input on things. “How did you feel about X, Y, or Z?” But other than that, it was just an experience for me. Looking at the judicial system, I realized it only takes a couple of people, and you can make anyone look guilty.

Throughout the process, how did you decompress?
Well, I go to the gym, and I watch TV. I play video games.

So what was the emotion when you finally reached a verdict?
It was such a sense of relief. And when I was finally able to say it, it was just mixed feelings, because somebody was gonna leave with a sour taste in their mouth, right? But at the same time, justice needed to be done, and I didn’t want someone going to jail who shouldn’t have.

Lydia Shire doesn’t yell. In a business historically built on tantrums and testosterone, the septuagenarian Boston legend is practically revolutionary for treating her kitchen staff like human beings—quietly doing what she’s always done: cooking ridiculously good food. She’s still running the show at Scampo in the Liberty Hotel (yes, the one that used to be a jail), recently took over the kitchen at Bar Enza in Cambridge, and can spot a gluten-free diner just like that from across the room. We called her up to hear her take on everything from why Barbara Lynch deserved better to her go-to order at McDonald’s.

If you weren’t a chef, what do you think you’d be?
I would be an interior decorator, or I would be a picker. You know what a picker is?

No—what’s a picker?
A picker is somebody who travels around and finds amazing items. You know, both my parents were artists, so I grew up in a home with art, and I love beautiful objects because I’m a Libra. So if I couldn’t be an interior decorator, I probably would be a picker. I would go out and find beautiful things for people.

So restaurants with big-name chefs—has the trend sort of gotten out of control?
I wouldn’t say that. I would have to say that big-name chefs in most cities, it’s because they deserve it. They worked hard to reach the level that they are. For instance, if you go to any of Michael Scelfo’s restaurants in Cambridge, you know, his food is amazing. I love his food. Doesn’t he deserve to be named as one of the top chefs in the Boston area? I think so. The same would be said about Ken Oringer, Jody Adams, or Barbara Lynch.

Speaking of Barbara Lynch, did you feel like a lot of the criticism of her smacked of sexism?
What it smacked of to me was people, you know, smelling blood, and they jump on the bandwagon and pile on. I felt that the articles in the Boston Globe and then the New York Times were just mean-spirited and looking at the opinion of one disgruntled employee. Instead of thinking for a second about how much Barbara Lynch did for Boston—how many happy dinners did she cook for countless people in Boston? How many engagements happened at No. 9 Park?

The kitchen is, by necessity, a hierarchical place. How does that work in your restaurants?
At Scampo, for instance, the executive chef is Simon Restrepo, and I am the chef-owner. He and I have worked together side-by-side for more than 36 years. You know, he can finish my sentences. I don’t think we’ve ever really had any cross words. We just really love to be with each other, work together, and create together.

That said, the personality type that’s always depicted of a celebrity chef is a Gordon Ramsay who presents himself as you know, yelling and screaming.
Well, they kinda do in Britain. I mean, Marco Pierre White can be very mercurial, and so is Gordon Ramsay. I met Gordon Ramsay around 30 years ago. I wanted to thank him and say hello to him; when he finally agreed to come out of the kitchen, he was very close to being rude, very matter-of-fact. And Jasper White and I went to Marco Pierre White’s restaurant in London, and he came out and he was rude and kind of brusque. I guess that’s the way they do it over there.

What’s the worst disaster that has ever befallen you in the kitchen?
I think when I found out that somebody close to me was stealing from me. That was not a good thing.

What’s the most significant way in which you have evolved as a chef, either personally or in your cooking?
Well, what I’m most proud of right now, at age 76, is my brain. I feel my brain is 21 years old. My body, on the other hand—I’ve had three spine operations, and I’m still having trouble with my back, so sometimes it’s difficult to walk long distances. But boy, do I love writing menus.

What do you think is the biggest problem with food today?
In general, I think people are starved for fat. You know, if you give a piece of duck to somebody—a duck breast that you rendered, but it has that nice little rim of fat on it—they’ll grab it because it tastes so good. It distresses me when I go into a supermarket and I see package after package of skinless, boneless chicken breast. I just really like to give people something they want but wouldn’t ask for.

Like butter.
Yeah, like butter.

You’re the queen of butter.
I sure am, although I will tell you this: I actually ripped out a page in a magazine, in which they asked Thomas Keller what his favorite ingredient was to cook with, and he said butter. So I’m not the only one, I will say that.

What is your favorite thing to cook?
If I were at home alone and really, really hungry, I would love a skirt steak. You know, I would marinate it for 15 minutes with a little soy and ginger and sesame oil, and then I would dry it off and heavily season it, and I would sear it in my black cast-iron pan. And I would keep it rare, and yes, I would put butter on it.

Is there a spice or seasoning that you find yourself using more than any others?
I love cumin. My husband, who is from Colombia, introduced me to the beauty of cumin. For instance, when I make rice, I chop up some onion and sauté it in a little oil, and I add cumin and then the rice and water—and salt, of course, and you have to have oil when you boil rice, because that’s what keeps it separate and flaky. But the flavor of jasmine rice and some cumin seeds is delicious. Try it sometime.

What are your thoughts on things like gluten-free and other culinary fads?
Well, it’s a known fact that many people want gluten-free food who do not have celiac disease. It’s preference—I’ve joked that if you look at a 40-year-old woman with blond hair, you know she’s gluten-free. And I’m not chastising anybody. But, you know, we do take all allergies extremely seriously. The manager has to be involved so the order is placed correctly in the kitchen.

What’s one thing that no one should ever bother making at home?
I mean, unless you wanna blow up a duck with your mouth, I don’t know how you would make Peking duck at home. That’s a pretty hard one. When I was doing a Peking duck for one particular menu, and we didn’t have an air pump, I literally had to make a little slit in the skin, and I had to put the duck to my mouth and blow air into it. That’s not funny. Imagine me standing around every day blowing ducks.

“We are kind in the kitchen—we don’t scream. I never point a finger, because that’s not the right way to talk to people.”

What is your silver bullet in the kitchen?
Well, I definitely will say that we are kind in the kitchen—we don’t scream. If I see something wrong—like somebody didn’t season something correctly, or they overcooked it, or whatever—I never point a finger, because that’s not the right way to talk to people. I never say that was wrong. You make it so that we’re a team and we’re gonna better the situation.

Do you think food is love?
Oh, definitely. Oh my God, can you imagine if I were a meter maid spreading misery? I mean, we work when other people are off, and that’s a beautiful thing—they come out to dine, and they’re happy. They’re at peace; they’re relaxed. We’re there with a nice smile to really make it special.

Do you have a favorite new restaurant in Boston?
Well, I’ve been to Jody’s restaurant, La Padrona, and I’ve had a great time there. I think the food is great.

If you were on death row, what would you request for your final meal?
I think a steak and spaghetti aglio e olio.

Is there anyone from history that you’d love to cook for?
Well, I met James Beard once toward the end of his life. When I say I met him, I literally said hello and that was it—I shook his hand. And then he died shortly thereafter, but I’ve read all of his books, and I just think he was such a colorful character. I love his recipes—to this day, I still make his cream biscuits, and I make a plum pudding for Christmas from his book.

What’s the best way to cook a lobster?
You don’t want to overcook it. Because when you think of it, lobster, especially the tail, it’s a muscle—it’s how they move. So if you overcook a lobster, that tail gets pretty chewy. But if you undercook it a bit—we do our lobsters for about five minutes, depending on the size—and then put them in an ice bath, it’s so tender and delicious.

Do you think that female chefs have an edge over male chefs in the kitchen?
No, I don’t. I think it’s luck of the draw. If you eat food from a great chef, it could be a woman or it could be a man.

Do you have a favorite holiday meal?
Oh, definitely—Christmas. Oh my God, are you kidding me? I pull out all the stops. I have a giant tin of caviar that I get from Browne Trading Market in Portland. I always have plum pudding—even though my children hate it.

Do you cook at home, or does cooking ever feel like a busman’s holiday for you?
Well, I’m a huge sports lover, and football is my favorite sport. When the season opens, it’s always the beginning of September. It could be the hottest day of the year because you know how hot September can be, especially early. But I have to have a roast chicken, even though the oven heats up my house. It ushers in fall and my favorite time of year, so it’s a tradition with me now—I have to have roast chicken on football Sunday.

Okay, McDonald’s or Burger King?
McDonald’s.

Why?
I don’t know—I haven’t been to Burger King that many times, but I’ve been to McDonald’s more in my lifetime. I like Big Macs; I think they’re delicious.

If you could open any style of restaurant today, what would it be?
Oh, definitely a steakhouse, because I’ve never had a steakhouse.

What do you hope you’ll be remembered for?
I would like to say that people would see me as adventurous. And also, I would love it if people would see that the way I write a menu—the actual words—I think that I write beautiful menus. But I hope that they remember me for great flavors.

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By the Numbers

The Shire Files

Vital stats on Lydia Shire’s five decades in the kitchen—and counting.

4

Shire’s age when she began cooking with her father.

1,200

Amount, in dollars, that Shire had to her name when she went to London to study at Le Cordon Bleu.

0

Number of female head chefs there had been at the Bostonian Hotel before Shire took the helm.

1.2 million

Amount, in dollars, that Shire had to raise to open the first restaurant she ever owned, Biba.

1992

Year Shire won the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Northeast.

17

Number of years that Scampo, Shire’s Italian restaurant at the Liberty Hotel, has been open.

You can take the boy out of Boston, but you can’t take Boston out of the boy—and Donnie Wahlberg seems determined to prove it with his new CBS series, Boston Blue, premiering this Friday, October 17. The highly anticipated spin-off of the popular police procedural Blue Bloods transplants Wahlberg’s character, former NYPD detective Danny Reagan, to the Boston Police Department, because why stop at one fictional badge, right? But that’s hardly all that’s keeping the musician turned actor busy. In June, New Kids on the Block launched the first leg of their Las Vegas residency, a nostalgia-powered spectacle that will captivate fans again this fall and winter with their signature moves and hits. We recently caught up with Wahlberg between chasing fictional criminals by day and harmonizing with Jordan Knight by night to chat about teenage fame, Tom Selleck, and those infamous NKOTB cruises.

First of all, if you could only root for one team for the rest of your life—Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, or Bruins—which is it?
Oh, my God, that’s the most evil question in the history of the world. I’m gonna go with the New England Revolution.

So Boston Blue—was that partially or wholly your idea?
Partially. I think it was my idea to do a show with Danny Reagan as a fish out of water, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that CBS would agree to [setting it in] Boston, so I didn’t even suggest it. And when I suggested Texas or California or Las Vegas, they said, “What’s wrong with Boston?” And my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe that they actually would be okay with it.

Is the show shot here?
Oh, yeah. We’re going to Fenway to shoot. We’re going to a bunch of different landmarks. We’re going to do a lot of exterior scenes. Doing this in Boston was a dream, and because of the economics of the industry right now, you know, [other productions are] going elsewhere, but I was kind of adamant that there are just things you can’t fake about Boston. So while I didn’t get my dream of filming it entirely in Boston, I got a fair compromise from everybody involved.

So who is the most talented Wahlberg?
That would have been Alma.

I know it’s been four years, but I’m very sorry about the passing of your mom. She was a really lovely person.
It’s all good. It would have been Alma, but I’ll go with Paul [the chef] now. If you’re asking just between Mark and me, I produced all of Mark’s records and wrote most of his songs, so I think I’d win between him and me. But he’s a very talented young man.

Acting versus singing: How do you identify yourself? Are you an actor? Are you a singer? Are you a singer who acts, an actor who sings?
Oh, boy. I think I was born to be a member of the New Kids on the Block. So I think that is my purpose. I started acting in first grade, so it was always in my blood. But I think my true purpose is music.

Are the NKOTB cruises exhausting?
I don’t sleep for four days on the cruises, and it’s the best four days of my life every time we do it.

What do your kids think of New Kids on the Block?
They’re very proud of me. They’re both musicians. They both love coming to New Kids concerts. But they both don’t want me to go see their bands play, so they’re proud to a point.

What was the last concert you went to?
Barry Manilow.

That’s so funny. Me, too. It was clearly a very Vegas show, but TD Garden was full, and he was awesome. Speaking of Las Vegas, you guys just got a residency—that’s like some Elvis-level shit. Is that a career high for you?
When we talked about doing Vegas as kids, back then, you went to Vegas and you did cover songs and, you know, show tunes, and you just retired there. Now, it’s a completely different thing. We share a theater with Bruno Mars and formerly Aerosmith, Lady Gaga, and Maroon 5. Vegas has changed so much that it’s really become a milestone, as opposed to a place where you set up your career gravestone.

How did you avoid the pitfalls of teenage fame?
I’m not sure I avoided the pitfalls of teenage fame. I think I just avoided the stereotypical pitfalls of teenage fame. I certainly made my share of mistakes, and it wasn’t easy growing up or going through sort of my autonomy years in a fishbowl. But I think there’s something about growing up in Boston that made all the New Kids very determined not to become a footnote. You know, Boston keeps you humble, but it also keeps you hungry. I never wanted to go back to that city and not make it proud.

Who in the band is the messiest?
Well, every one of the New Kids would say me, so I’m not gonna argue with them.

Can you still rap?
Of course.

What’s the cheesiest piece of merchandise with your face on it?
I went into…I think it was a Sears when New Kids were really at the height of the insanity. And there was a whole area dedicated to us, and I saw neon furry slippers. And, you know, ironically, I’d probably find them cool today, but in 1990, I literally turned around, went down the escalator, left the store, and called our attorney and said, “What are we doing?”

Is there anyone who calls you Donald?
My son, Elijah. It’s all he calls me.

That’s hilarious. What do you think is your best performance as an actor?
Well, I’m not sure. I would probably have to say The Sixth Sense, just because of what it meant to my career and how I think it was officially the moment I started to be considered an actor, as opposed to a guy from a boy band acting now and again.

Who’s the greatest actor you’ve ever worked with?
Fast answer would be Al Pacino, but I think the most important answer would be John Leguizamo. You know, it was at a really early stage in my career, and I worked with him on a movie that was on the verge of being shut down, and some of the actors were, I guess, hoping it would get shut down. I had a scene with John, and we rehearsed together, and he was so committed and disinterested in the politics of what was happening behind the scenes and so focused on the work that I knew that was the path I had to follow—to stay committed to the work no matter what. As it turned out, the movie didn’t get shut down, and he was exceptional in the movie, and it really had an impact on me to this day.

Is there a singer or an actor that you’ve been compared to that you consider the greatest compliment?
I’ve been told that I’d be a good choice to play Frank Sinatra in a biopic. I don’t see it. Other than that, I don’t think I’ve been compared to anyone. Honestly, sometimes people mistake me for Mark Wahlberg. So I guess that’ll have to do.

You were in all the Saw movies. What do you think it is about horror movies that we love so much?
It’s probably that we survived them. Half the thrill is being terrified and then coming out of it, knowing you’re okay and laughing like an idiot.

What are your top three spots in Boston?
Well, I would say courtside at a Celtics game. Anytime I can go back to Dorchester would be number two, and I’d probably say anywhere down by the harbor or in the Seaport. Because I remember Boston before the Big Dig, and it has changed so much. It’s so beautiful. Sure, it was disastrous at times, but no other city in the world could dream of doing such a thing for the budget that it was done on.

What three adjectives would you use to describe Tom Selleck?
I’ll go with serious, dedicated, and a big softy.

Do you have any aspirations to do Broadway?
The phrase “do Broadway” for me means go to some shows and watch them.

So you don’t want to perform on Broadway?
I don’t want to perform on Broadway, per se, but I’d like to do a New Kids Broadway show at some point. But performing on Broadway, it’s not my calling. I hope to go see Joey McIntyre in a Tony Award–winning performance on Broadway someday.

Have you ever worked with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck? And if not, why?
I’ve worked with Ben on the Dunkin’ Super Bowl ad, and he was awesome. I haven’t worked with Matt, but I’ve gotten to know him, and I just think the world of both of them.

What, besides your family, is the thing you miss the most about Boston?
The unmistakable energy in the air. It’s noticeable the second I step off an airplane or out of a car driving in from another place. It’s just unmistakably Boston. If you haven’t traveled out of Boston, you don’t know, but if you have, and you’ve been able to be in other places and come back, it’s different here.

Anybody you were ever intimidated to work with or starstruck by?
Not really. I was a little intimidated to work with Bill Belichick on the Dunkin’ ad, but he had already wrapped and finished before I got there, so it wasn’t a problem.

Do you think you’d make a good cop in real life?
I do. I never forget a face.

Have you done any actual police training? Or have you learned things about being a policeman by playing so many of them that you’d never know otherwise?
Absolutely; I’ve learned a lot. Most specifically, the whole concept of running to something that everyone else is running away from. When you’re a husband or wife or a dad or a mom and you’re on the job and you have family or loved ones at home, and something horrible is happening, and you’re running to it while hundreds of people are running in the other direction, you know, to put all the things in your life to the side and put other people’s safety first, it’s an amazing thing to consider. I don’t really have to do that. I just have to pretend to do that, right? But I treat that commitment that real police officers have with great respect and admiration.

To what degree do you think you owe your success to record producer Maurice Starr?
Maurice Starr changed my life. Maurice Starr changed the lives of so many people that it’s almost limitless to consider. The Maurice Starr family tree—if you think of New Edition, then you’d have to think of each individual member and their success, then the offshoots, then the [groups they influenced], Boyz II Men, the people that they affected. Then, of course, New Kids. You know, I don’t think you have Backstreet Boys without Maurice Starr. You don’t have NSYNC without Maurice Starr; you don’t have Justin Timberlake. Without Maurice Starr, you don’t have One Direction and Harry Styles. There should be a statue of Maurice in Boston.

It’s funny that you say that, because my next question for you was going to be, “Would you like a statue of yourself? And where would you put it?”
I wouldn’t personally put a statue of myself anywhere. That’s for someone else to decide if I’m deserving of that. I’d settle for a street named after me in Dorchester, or a park. That would be a tremendous honor for me.

Well, my last question for you is, where is the best burger in Boston?
[Laughs.] At a little place called Wahlburgers next to Fenway Park.

How does it feel to be one of the people who ended the COVID pandemic?

Well, one, I would say objectively that ending the pandemic was a pretty substantial effort by a lot of people, just within Moderna itself. It really took a gigantic team effort. But if you’re asking about being a part of one of the few entities, as founder and chairman, I would say it’s a great privilege. It’s a very fortunate thing to be given the opportunity to apply science to do such a thing. I’ve worked for the past 38 years, making innovations and creating companies that can have some kind of impact, and I could’ve worked another 38 years and not had that kind of impact. But the circumstances were such and the odds played out in a way that our science and our approach turned out to produce an effective vaccine, and that contributed greatly, not entirely but greatly, to ending the pandemic.

What’s the thing you’re most frightened of in an existential way?

On a professional level? We spend all of our time thinking about life as though we were molecules inside of it, and we imagine or dream up all sorts of diseases, all sorts of ways to go after them. They’re all saturatingly scary, because we only work on them if they’re really debilitating, whether it’s Alzheimer’s, or various forms of cancer, or an infectious disease like COVID. But there are many others.

How about on a personal level?

Having lost two parents to cancer, it continues to be a haunting feeling that the very nature of cells, which is their evolutionary tendency to mutate, can be turned against the body they’re in. Cancer is a pure disease of evolution. I’d probably say cancer is high on my list of things that I fear, in the sense that we don’t yet have ways to catch it in its earliest forms. And obviously, I’m saying all this because we’re working on that, applying our mRNA technology quite encouragingly toward that end, but it’s gonna take a lot of continued research, innovation, and ingenuity.

So you do think it’s possible at some point in the future to come up with a vaccine for cancer?

Well, let me say it slightly differently, because people misunderstand vaccines. There are prophylactic vaccines that prevent infection. There are vaccines that mitigate the progression of a disease and its most severe forms, which is often what happens with flu and COVID, and many others. And then there are ways to prime the immune system to go and find a disease that is not an infection. We view what we’re doing with mRNA as a form of immunotherapy that rather than delivering antibodies, delivers a set of messages that causes our T-cells to go after the cancer, which is fundamentally different from the premise of vaccines, because you have to already have the disease to benefit from it. So I will just say that yes, I definitively think that over time, sooner in some cases, maybe later in others, we will be able to message our immune system to do its job to fight cancer.

Is mRNA our greatest hope for attacking disease, or is there an equally promising alternative technology or approach?

That’s an interesting question, given that in the summer of 2010, we literally fantasized over a molecule like mRNA even being deliverable to a cell inside the human body. When our bodies see a molecule of RNA, unless it’s properly packaged and protected, it will just trigger our immune response, so we had to figure out how to get rid of that. I say all that because it would be hard for me to sit here and say mRNA is the last molecule that will be able to do that, when in fact, 15 years ago, nobody believed we could do it. Five years ago, even. So I do think that there will be lots of improvements and other approaches that will continue to advance, as long as the need exists.

Care to comment on the attack by RFK Jr. on the development and use of mRNA vaccines?

I think that mRNA has many scientific advantages that were fully born out in the testing that was done during COVID, the beneficiaries of which are the future generations of vaccine recipients, whether it’s for RSV or flu, or other diseases, and the more we learn, the more we can optimize for efficacy and reduced side effects. Having said that, to your specific question, I think that science is subject to debate and discussion, but facts need to be respected, and I don’t think they’re a matter of opinion.

What would you say to someone who’s not exposed to those facts and who is a vaccine skeptic? How do you reassure them?

In my life, the way I approach areas that I’m not an expert in, where I haven’t spent enough time or mastered the content, is that I’ve availed myself of the expertise that’s out there, preferably entities that have historically been charged with doing this work in delivering the best recommendations, or medical associations. I follow the collective wisdom that exists. And by the way, I’ll mention parenthetically that often vaccine skeptics are highly educated, and they use their knowledge to question certain things in areas that are not exactly in their area of expertise. I’ve observed medical doctors who have different views, for instance.

Then who should we trust?

Let me share one thing that I do worry about. You asked what scares me, and I’ll tell you. What scares me about this topic is that there’s no limit to how far we can be skeptics. With vaccines or cancer treatments or every other therapy, there is opinion. There is judgment. There is the FDA, which has made a risk-reward trade-off. And I worry as a society about what happens if tomorrow we have metabolism skeptics or bacteria skeptics. And before you say, “No, that’s different,” I don’t know what the difference is, because it says all medicine and medical guidance or practice should be subject to opinion. I’ve done this for a long time, and I think it’s important that we maintain a level of objectivity, group analysis, and debate, versus rendering things out of opinion.

Is a vaccine ever worse than the disease?

Hidden within that question is that an individual’s experience with a vaccine or a treatment is not what a regulator assesses. It’s the collective, population-level effect of it. So people experience things that are completely within the bounds of a regulated substance, because the overall benefit far outweighs the individual’s sometimes known, sometimes unknown effects. That’s the case with every vaccine, or intervention, or medical treatment, that involves humans. However, I don’t think that there are approved vaccines that are worse than the disease—because if they were, they wouldn’t be approved.

Who is the person you admire the most?

Scientifically, probably Charles Darwin. I’m trained as an engineer but did science for the rest of my life, and the notion that there’s a paradigm of innovation that happens in nature, in human thought, in marketplaces, is a fairly profound thing. Flagship’s entire mechanism rests on that observation.

Do you consider yourself primarily a scientist, inventor, CEO, or entrepreneur?

You got me there. I do consider myself an amalgam of all of those, and it’s the basis on which I can go from ideation to impact. If you’re one of those, there are a lot of hand-offs, and what we’ve tried to be is inventors who can bring the concept to practical reality, which takes those other things. I worked hard at being, if not great, then good enough at each, so that I can be great at combining them.

You have more than 100 patents in your name. Which are you most proud of?

Well, some of the early patents that led to the formation of Moderna are important from an impact standpoint. The very first patents I worked on 38 years ago, I just recently learned, have achieved sales at a peak of about $4 or $5 billion—unbeknownst to me, because I sold the company in 1998. I’m proud of that. One invention I regret not seeing commercialized yet is a modification to cyanobacteria, a blue-green algae, that allows us to take carbon dioxide from air and sunlight and convert that into diesel fuel. That remains very promising.

What’s your biggest indulgence?

What gives me the greatest happiness historically is basketball. I’ve played since I was five or six years old. I know indulgence is supposed to be extravagance, though, so I guess one look at me and you can see that I have quite a few food indulgences. I come from the Middle East, and as an Armenian, there are a lot of foods I indulge in.

Where is the best Armenian food in Boston?

I’m blessed to have a lot of Armenian friends who are excellent cooks, and that’s probably the best, but from a restaurant standpoint, I’d say Anoush’ella, which is owned by my friend and his wife. It’s excellent.

You’ve been honored numerous times as a distinguished and invaluable immigrant. Any thoughts on the current dialogue surrounding immigrants and immigration?

I think, in a nutshell, that immigration, above every other thing in this country, is the biggest contributor to its sustainable success. It’s a regenerative process, and anyone I’ve ever met here in the United States, whether it’s five generations or one, was an immigrant. At the edges, immigration can’t be an uncontrolled, unregulated process. We have to ensure that it’s done within the bounds of what the law will allow. But the importance and relevance of immigrants is completely beyond question, in my view.

Headline you’d most like to read?

There are so many. I dream a lot. I’d love to read a headline that objectively showed a reduction of C02 levels in the atmosphere. Or that poverty levels have been reduced substantially for the 20th year in a row. If I read that people were holding genocidal regimes accountable. I care a lot about that. Famine ending. Unfortunately, there’s a saying that my late friend Vartan Gregorian used to quote: “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero,” so any of those will do.

Any desire for a Nobel Prize?

I have no desire for a Nobel Prize.

You’ve been at this for 25 years. What does the next 25 years look like?

Over 25 years, I’ve learned that you can’t predict the future. You can only decide what kind of future you want to live in and do your best to build it. Right now, I think the biggest opportunity we have is using AI to accelerate science. For a long time, humans thought of our own intelligence as the only intelligence. But now we’ve seen that there is such a thing as machine intelligence, and that should give us cause to also recognize what I think of as nature’s intelligence, or the logic of the natural world. When we bring these three intelligences into conversation with each other, we get what I call “polyintelligence,” and that interaction will revolutionize how we do science in ways we can’t even imagine yet. It will help us get to solutions for the biggest challenges humans face—disease, hunger, climate change—much more quickly and more effectively. And for that reason, I think the future is bright.

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By the Numbers

The Afeyan Effect

Noubar Afeyan has secured patents, launched companies, and founded charities that are changing the world.

100+

Number of life-sciences companies Afeyan has founded.

177

Number of patents in which Afeyan appears as one of the inventors.

30

Number of companies founded by Flagship Pioneering that have had IPOs.

1.2 billion

Afeyan’s net worth, in dollars, according to Forbes’ real-time tracker.

63

Number of countries and territories whose citizens have been supported by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, one of the foundations Afeyan cofounded.

This article was first published in the print edition of the October 2025 issue with the headline: “The King of Kendall.”

Previously

• The Interview: Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel

Do you have a secret place to eat near Fenway?
I’m a huge fan of Honeygrow and Cava. I’m in and out of there quickly most days, but in the ballpark, I eat in the suite most nights.

What’s the thing that’s changed the most in 30 years?
Pretty much the entire cultural landscape. The ways that we consume entertainment, that we consume cultural information, and how information about those things is disseminated. My favorite story for this, which is true, although it makes me sound like an old man, is that when I came to Boston, I didn’t have an email address or a cell phone. And it was not weird that I didn’t have those things. But starting about five years after I got here and continuing today is that live performing arts have been waging a constant battle to remind people, or prove to people, that nothing beats experiencing cultural things in a community. And I think that’s a battle worth fighting.

Are you still making musical discoveries?
Yes! Not with “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” but the interesting thing about the Pops has always been the variety and the lack of constraint as to what is acceptable material. It gives you opportunities. A good example would be last November when we did our Día de Muertos concert. I admit that I was one of the people who said, “This doesn’t sound like a good idea,” not for any disrespect for the holiday or for Mexican culture, but because we’re not known for having a huge Mexican community here, and even if we did, we’re not known for being able to reach into the community and help them find us. But I was wrong on both counts. It was fascinating music, and we featured a couple of local Mexican artists who were outstanding, like an all-female mariachi band. And we had a full house.

What do you listen to in your car or at home?
This is the most boring answer ever. I don’t listen to music in the background. I can’t do it. If it’s soft, I keep trying to hear what it is, and if it’s loud, it honestly just makes my skin crawl. I’m fine with loud music when I’m actually part of the cause. But when I’m in the car by myself, it’s a lot of NPR. You can’t listen to beautiful classical music in the car anyway, because the environment isn’t quiet enough to hear the incredible dynamic range. And when my wife, Emiley, is in the car, it’s a lot of classic rock and Whitney Houston, et cetera.

Do you consider yourself a Bostonian at this point?
Yeah. I don’t know if Bostonians would consider me a Bostonian. I may need to be dead for a while before that happens. But I’ve now lived here almost half of my life, and there’s no other place where I’ve lived longer, even Poughkeepsie, which I left when I was 17. And I’m not scared to drive here, at least not any more than any reasonable human being should be.

Beethoven is the only name carved into the proscenium arch at Symphony Hall because they’ve never been able to agree on who else belongs up there. If they came to you and said, “You get to put another name up there,” whose would it be?
Probably Mahler.

Before Mozart, or Handel, or Haydn, or Bach?
Yeah. I mean, I understand the genius of Mozart, and I deeply appreciate it, but I’m a very romantic guy. The composers who really did the most extraordinary things with orchestra music, which is where I live, are the ones who created soundscapes that were overpowering. Like Mahler said, “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.” That’s just a very different aesthetic than what drove Mozart, and I prefer the really over-the-top, I suppose.

Holiday Pops or Fourth of July on the Esplanade?
Fourth of July is a singular event. It’s like nothing any other orchestra does. But I’ve always been much more of a Christmas person than a Fourth of July person. And I like what we do for people during the holidays. I really get the feeling, and I hope it’s not misguided, that with the 100,000 people we see in that three-week span, we do them some psychological and emotional good. I really love what Holiday Pops has become.

Worst faux pas or disaster onstage?
I had my pants fall down once, but that was before I was in Boston. I’ve introduced the wrong person before they walked out. But I have a really good selective memory for not remembering mistakes. I’ve certainly started the wrong piece. Most of the mistakes I make onstage, though, I hope are small enough that only the orchestra would notice.

Funniest ad-lib?
It wasn’t intentional, but we had Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch on the stage conducting, and I had put them on the stage and they were getting ready to go, and then I went back up to them and reversed them. I said, “No, you’re on the left, and you’re on the right.” There are some opportunities for comedy.

Favorite song in the Great American Songbook?
Jerome Kern’s “All the Things You Are.” “Lush Life” would be another, but it’s a downer.

Anyone you would never work with again, and why?
Yes. The Fourth of July is a one-off, and we tend to have bigger names of the moment than we have at any other time. Their motivation for being there may not be quite the same as some people who are a bit more thoughtful about why they want to work with an orchestra. And during rehearsal, you really get to see what people are like, the best or the worst of them. I won’t name any names, but there are artists who come in and are just delightful. They’re humble. They do exactly what they’re supposed to do. They don’t think it revolves around them. And then you get people who treat everyone badly. Not me, because they’re inclined to be polite to me. But the runners and the people making sure they have towels in their dressing room. If it wasn’t a bad idea, I would punch them.

How physically demanding is conducting?
More than it was 25 years ago. I used to get away without doing a whole lot of exercise because I figured 30 hours on the podium per week made up for it. Now, I need to rethink that. My shoulders hurt more and more. Everything swells up, and the lower back is becoming a bit of a problem. I’ve been sitting more than I ever did. And the worst thing is that I can’t sleep on my left or right side because it starts to hurt, but I can’t sleep on my back, because I snore.

Do you ever get stage fright?
Not as a conductor, but one reason I knew I wasn’t cut out to be a concert pianist was that I had stage fright to the level of panic. I remember getting ready for my senior recital. I couldn’t feel my hands. They were numb and cold, and that’s a bad way to go out. I used to think if I got through a recital, that was surviving, and that brought me no joy. But when I started doing more than dabbling at conducting, I realized it was something that I could do, that I felt very comfortable in the milieu, that I was a better coach than I was a player.

Do you have any superstitions? Anything you reflexively do before going onstage?
Seiji Ozawa used to touch the door frame. Mine are more like routines than superstitions. I get dressed in this order. I take these clothes off first, and these second, and put my pants on one leg at a time. I used to have a couple that were more overt, like a stone in my pocket that meant something to me. But the problem with things like that is that you’re fine until the day you forget the stone.

Your greatest achievement?
Besides my kids? I’m most proud of two things. The work that I’ve done here, and the way that people recognize me as being an elemental part of the arts community in Boston. Also, what I’ve been doing for the past 18 years with the Brevard Music Center Summer Institute and Festival, creating an extraordinary and unique place for kids to learn about music. I’m not John Williams. I don’t have a body of creative work. So it’s nice to know that something you had an elemental part in making may be useful for people 50 years from now.

Do you have a Grammy?
No, I’ve had two Grammy nominations. The problem with the Pops is that it’s put into a category that’s neither fish nor fowl. Arthur Fiedler never got a Grammy, and he sold millions and millions of albums. We have The Celtic Album, which was nominated for best classical crossover. But we lost to Yo-Yo Ma, like everyone does. Then we had a Latin Grammy nomination for best pop instrumental album, for The Latin Album. The award ceremony for the Latin Grammys that year was on September 11, 2001, so that didn’t happen.

Favorite Pops tradition?
I could say it’s Sparkle the Christmas Wonderhorse, who shows up mysteriously during “Sleigh Ride.” Or even the little things, like there’s a place where the brass section and I jump in “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” That was just me screwing around one day, and they started doing it back. And now, when a new generation of trumpet players comes in, the veterans say, “You know, Maestro expects you to do this.”

What do you think an orchestra member would say is your most annoying trait?
Death face. I’m much better about it now than I used to be, but basically, I don’t have as much control over my facial expressions as I should have. When somebody screws up, which inevitably happens because everyone is human and fallible, often, before I can neutralize it, I get the WTF face. I’m fairly sure that’s what the majority would pick as my least attractive trait.

Was your gig at the BBC Concert Orchestra a major career highlight?
It was always very important to me that I not be perceived as just a Pops conductor, because that’s been a burial ground for a whole lot of people. So immediately after I came to Boston, I worked on winning the Utah Symphony job, and I was there for 11 years. Then, when that was winding down, the BBC opportunity came up, like most good opportunities, totally out of the blue. I was just supposed to guest with them, and then they were like, “Hey, would you stick around and be principal conductor?” It was fun because there are a lot of cool things you get to go do just because you’re affiliated with the BBC. I conducted the house orchestra for Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012. I shared the stage with Renee Fleming and Lang Lang and Elton John and Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Tom Jones, Grace Jones and Andrew Lloyd Webber. And then I got to meet the Queen, and we went to a party that was hosted by Harry, William, and Kate.

What’s going to be the title of your memoir?
Well, let me see. The witty ones have been taken: No Minor Chords. The Rest Is Noise. But I can tell you my favorite quote about music from Hector Belioz: “Love or music—which power can uplift man to the sublimest heights? It is a large question, yet it seems to me one should answer it in this way: Love cannot give an idea of music; music can give an idea of love. But why separate them? They are the two wings of the soul.” I’d always wished I’d written that. Maybe that’s the title: I Wish I’d Written That.