Bestselling author and arguably Maine’s most famous resident Stephen King sat down for a Q&A with Rolling Stone magazine to promote his new book, “End of Watch,” and talked about everything from politics to social media.
But the outspoken King has never been ambiguous about his left-leaning political stances, so his disapproval of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump isn’t a big revelation.
Still, the fact that his favorite children’s book is “The 500 Hats of Batholomew Cubbins,” by Dr. Seuss, his favorite city is New York and the Del Amitri song “Always the last to know” always hits him hard were fun new tidbits.
But if you’re Stephen King, who’s sold more than 350 million books and has received a National Medal of Arts, who do you hold up as your hero?
Well, iconic Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese is one.
“In my new book, ‘End of Watch,’ one of the characters says most moviemakers make short stories and Scorsese does novels,” King told Rolling Stone.
Another is Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Cormac McCarthy, who King lauds for “always [doing] things his way.”
Before mentioning McCarthy or Scorsese, though, King named someone nearly three decades his junior: Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.
Tip of the cap here to Boston sports newsletter Wicked Early Sports for the find.
We’ve known that the author has been a big Sox fan for a long time — he even co-wrote a whole book chronicling the team’s 2004 title run — but calling 40-year-old soon-to-retire Ortiz a hero is new.
“He’s great at what he does, and he never lost his common touch,” King told Rolling Stone.