It all started with a sandwich.

Holly Bario was helping her friend host a party in Los Angeles, nearly two years after the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School graduate moved to the west coast. At the time she was working a temporary job in the advertising department of a local television station. At the party she served a sandwich to Michael Besman, a movie producer who said he was looking for a new assistant and offered her the job. She said no at first, but Mr. Besman was persistent and called her the next day to follow up.

Ms. Bario did not have an official film background but she was an avid movie fan, so she decided to say yes.

“It was a real movie job,” said Ms. Bario during a recent phone call from Los Angeles with the Gazette. “I realized I could be in the movie business and not be a producer, director, writer or actor. I decided the executive route was the one for me.”

She was right and over the years quickly rose up the entertainment industry ladder. Currently, she is president of production at Steven Spielberg’s company Amblin Partners (formerly DreamWorks) where she has shepherded a long list of commercially and critically acclaimed movies including The Help, Lincoln and this year’s Oscar-nominated Green Book.

Green Book tells the story of an Italian-American man who drives an African-American pianist on a concert tour through the 1960’s South. It has been nominated for several Academy Awards including Best Picture.

Ms. Bario said that as soon as she read the script, she knew it would be a hit.

“I thought it was maybe The Help, but for guys,” she said. “I thought it was a story worth telling on the big screen. Even my parents went to the movie theatre to see it.”

Ms. Bario’s parents are Pat and Joan Jenkinson who own Up-Island Automotive in West Tisbury. Joan Jenkinson was the West Tisbury animal control officer for 27 years until her retirement in 2016.

Green Book has another Vineyard connection. It is directed by Peter Farrelly, a former seasonal resident of the Island. Ms. Bario said she and Mr. Farrelly bonded over their shared Vineyard connection when they first met to discuss the project.

“I knew he was a seasonal resident,” she said. “Then when we met to talk about the movie, I said to him ‘hey, do you remember this person?’ It ignited this whole other conversation about the Island, our roots.”

Part of Ms. Bario’s roots on the Isand involved working at Island Entertainment, the video rental store that is set to close next month. She recalled fond memories of working with Jamie Alley at the store and said she will deeply miss the Island institution that began her movie education.

“It really helped me develop my film vocabulary,” she said. “It kind of breaks my heart that the Island won’t have that time machine vault of information.”

Ms. Bario said one of the best parts of her job is the opportunity to help launch someone’s career.

“Finding new talent is by far the most rewarding and enriching experience because you’re changing someone’s life,” she said.

Ms. Bario said she was particularly proud of a risky “yes” given to first time director Tate Taylor for The Help, the 2011 award-winning drama about the lives of African-American maids in 1960’s Mississippi, which also helped launch the career of Octavia Spencer.

Although she has had plenty of success, Ms. Bario said there’s no exact formula for ensuring a movie will be a hit.

“You’re wrong a lot,” she said. “The biggest challenge of movies is putting them with the right audience. I’ve worked on plenty of movies you put out there and nobody goes.”

The key, she said, is trusting her instincts. “Do I wanna see it, is always the first barometer. If that’s yes, or I end up Googling the story afterward...then I’m more leaning into it. If it’s a maybe, then it gets more difficult.”

Green Book isn’t Ms. Bario’s only award contender this year. Ready Player One, a nostalgia-driven science fiction thriller directed by Steven Spielberg is also nominated for Visual Effects.

“We’re very proud of Ready Player One,” she said.

The Oscar nominations are validation, she said, for films she has worked on since they were just words on the page. She added that she’s still giddy at the chance to sit next to the biggest names in the industry at Sunday night’s award ceremony, people she used to see on DVD covers at Island Entertainment.

“I have to pinch myself,” she said.

After awards season though, it’s back to work on a host of new projects she can’t discuss yet, but if her gut proves right again, will launch the careers of a new wave of talent.

“In the job I say no way more often than I say yes,” she said. “In a business that is mostly no, the yes can be very rewarding.”

The 91st Academy Awards ceremony is Sunday, Feb. 24 at 8 p.m, EST.