The pressure is on for Mark Wahlberg. The one-time rapper-turned-Hollywood star has recently added Academy Award nominee to his constantly expanding resume, after getting a nod for his acid-tongued performance in Martin Scorsese’s prize magnet The Departed.
So far, Wahlberg has received offers to star in a boxing period piece, The Fighter (opposite The Departed co-star Matt Damon), M. Night Shyamalan’s comeback movie (after Lady in the Water drowned) The Happening, sequels to both The Italian Job and The Departed, as well as the opportunity to play the character of Duke in the possible live-action G.I. Joe movie.
Wahlberg was in Toronto over the weekend promoting his latest flick, the political thriller Shooter, and expressed how he was overwhelmed, yet excited about all of the options he’s been presented with.
“I’d like to do them all,” he quipped, though he added that each project is contingent on the quality of their screenplays, as well as his own busy schedule as executive producer of the hit TV series Entourage, and two new HBO projects as well.
The former problem child from the South Boston projects isn’t making any hasty decisions, as he’s all too familiar with the precarious nature of celebrity. After scoring a number-one Billboard hit in October 1991 with “Good Vibrations,” produced by his brother Donnie, Marky Mark’s popularity plummeted amidst the collapse of teen pop and allegations of homophobia. These missteps, combined with his rap sheet-a laundry list of racially-tinged assault charges-didn’t fare with well the press or his fan base of teenage girls.
Never one to lay down and quit, Wahlberg quickly rebranded himself as a film actor, with surprisingly positive results. After unremarkable performances in The Basketball Diaries (1995) and Fear (1996), Wahlberg once again won the public’s attention with memorable showings in Boogie Nights (1997), Three Kings (1999), and I [Heart] Huckabees (2004).
While the actor owns up to his turbulent past, he also contends that it provides his characters with an authenticity that’s foreign to most Hollywood stars.
“I’m far enough away from that now,” the actor insisted. “I remember for a long time I didn’t want to have my shirt off (which was a very “Marky Mark” thing to do). I don’t like to do stuff that reminds people of my past.”
With his past gone but not forgotten, Wahlberg takes great care when planning his career, particularly which projects he chooses to work on.
“If you make a movie and it doesn’t work, they don’t really give too many choices after that,” Wahlberg modestly lamented. “Certain people are allowed more misses than others, and I don’t think I’m on that list.”
His career isn’t the only factor that shapes his decision-making. Wahlberg also has a baby boy and a toddler daughter to think about.
“I spend hours up at night trying to figure out how I’m going to explain Boogie Nights,” Wahlberg stressed, calling to attention his breakout role as the well-endowed porn star, Dirk Diggler.
“Hopefully people will start calling me Swagger (his ex-military character in Shooter) when they see me on the street, instead of Dirk, because my daughter will be like, ‘Who’s Dirk, Daddy?'”
Though Wahlberg may want to keep Dirk under wraps, he doesn’t have many regrets. “I’ve had a pretty good run,” said Wahlberg. “I’m extremely grateful for all the things that have happened to me. So I don’t expect it to last forever.”
His weariness of the business might be why the star keeps an ironic distance from Hollywood. He doesn’t buy into the glitz and glamour normally associated with the lifestyles of the rich and shameless. For Wahlberg, it’s all about the work.
“You know people think, ‘Oh you’re in Hollywood, you’re making movies, it’s got to be glamorous,'” he said. “The only people that have it easy are the guys on Entourage. I’m always in the middle of nowhere, in some horrible conditions, with people trying to hurt me. These guys are with hot chicks in L.A., cruising around in cool cars. They’re really living it.”
But Wahlberg, who serves as executive producer on Entourage, says he’s sadistically enjoying the new direction that the series is taking. Since the show is loosely based on Wahlberg’s own experience with fame, it seems logical that the charmed protagonist, Vince, should have his luck run out. “Now Vince is broke, man. Vince is done. I love the dramatic turns that the show is taking.”
“It’s cool for a minute to see these guys living the high life. But come on, you don’t want to see that for so long. I remember hearing the cast of Ocean’s 12 talking about how much fun they were having. I don’t want to hear that, a bunch of rich people having a good time while everybody else is living in the real world. The more crap that they have to deal with, the happier I am.”
While the actor readily admits that, like everyone else, he craves success, Wahlberg is concerned with bigger things than how many digits are on his massive paycheques, or how many magazines flash his rock-hard abs to millions of supermarket shoppers.
“I want to go to heaven,” he coolly stated. “I want to do right. I want my kids to be raised the right way. I want to be proud of the way I’ve lived my life. Certainly, the opportunity I’ve been given, this situation I’ve been put in, I need to do the right thing with it. Creating opportunities for kids that come from the situations like the one I came from, that’s what it’s all about.”
Wahlberg is certainly trying to meet each of those ends. He has also stated in interviews that he plans to retire at the age of 40-he’s currently 35-to focus entirely on being a good parent, and is attempting to break into professional golf. Six years ago he opened The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation to give inner-city kids an opportunity to avoid the kind of violent lifestyle he had in his early days. He’s also hoping that these kids don’t go and see his ultra-violent films.
In Shooter, Wahlberg plays Bobby Lee Swagger, a disgruntled ex-marine who is framed for an attempt on the president’s life. In the ensuing chaos, Swagger goes AWOL to catch the conspirators and clear his name. It’s actually a lot like The Bourne Identity – just replace Matt Damon’s rogue amnesiac with Wahlberg’s set-up sniper.
Wahlberg said that audiences have had some extreme responses to his character’s methods of house-cleaning.
“They were going bananas at the end of the movie,” he commented about the audience at a test screening. “Their reaction to my getting revenge just sent them over the moon. You would have thought that the Maple Leafs had won the Stanley Cup.” (Thanks for the reminder!)
Wahlberg is quick to point out that his character’s affinity for violence is purely fictional. Wahlberg required rigorous training from a drill sergeant just to portray Swagger.
“Hopefully people will take it for what it is,” he said. “It’s entertainment.”
The actor insists that it was the politics of the movie, combined with the kind of action he would like to see onscreen, that appealed to him.
“If you have a movie that has something to say and the ability to entertain, and is something that is extremely satisfying, it’s just the ideal situation.” But as always with Wahlberg, every ideal moment comes with a caution.
“We talk about some pretty serious stuff in the movie, and hopefully it will raise some questions. The real way to make changes is not to put a gun in your hand – it’s to go to the polling station and place your vote.”
Shooter opens in theatres this Friday.
// GOOD VIBRATIONS?
1971 – Born Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg in Dorchester Massachusetts.
1984 – Briefly joined The New Kids on the Block with older brother Donnie, but soon quit and was eventually replaced by Joey McIntyre.
1985 – Began attending Copley Square High School, but never graduated.
1986 – Was rebuked for throwing rocks and yelling racist slurs at black schoolchildren who were on a field trip.
1987 – While high on angel dust, Wahlberg attacked two Vietnamese men with a wooden stick while yelling racist insults, knocking one unconscious and permanently blinding the other in one eye. Wahlberg pled guilty to assault and served 45 days in Boston’s Deer Island House of Correction.
1991 – Recorded the single “Good Vibrations” written by Amir Shakir (featuring brother Donnie as producer) as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. “Good Vibrations” was a number-one Billboard hit the week of Oct. 5.
1992 – Marky Mark opened for NKOTB on their final tour and released his second album You Gotta Believe, which flopped. Wahlberg co-authored the book Marky Mark which he dedicates to his “dick,” and in which he reveals that he has a third nipple.
1993 – Wahlberg begans his acting career by appearing in the TV movie The Substitute and a workout video titled, The Marky Mark Workout: Fitness, Form, Focus.
-JORDAN BIMM
