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“I did a lot of things that I
regretted and I certainly paid for
my mistakes.”
The life of Mark Robert Michael
Wahlberg is the stuff of a compelling,
road-to-redemption biopic. Born in Boston,
Massachusetts in 1971, the youngest
of the nine Wahlberg children dropped
out of high school at 14 to pursue a life
of petty crime and drug addiction, which
eventually led to him serving 45 days in
prison following an assault conviction.
But while Wahlberg’s incarceration served
as a reality check, it did little to curb his
bad boy behaviour, which he used to his
advantage as the frontman of rap group
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. His
chiselled physique made him an instant
teen heartthrob and the poster boy for
Calvin Klein underwear. But despite his
popularity and a No.1 album, a series of
scandals – including a much publicised
clash with Madonna and her entourage
at an LA nightclub – ultimately ended his
music career, and he consequently turned
to acting. His breakout role in Boogie
Nights (1997) revealed he had the talent
to make it in Hollywood, and he’s now
an A-lister, Oscar nominee, producer and
devoted family man. To say that Mark
Wahlberg has successfully turned his life
around would be an understatement.
The ‘90s
“I can always see something of myself
in the characters I play.”
Marky Mark made a rather inauspicious movie
debut in 1993 in the terrible telemovie The
Substitute, a thriller penned pseudonymously
by David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight) involving
a homicidal teacher who “loves her students...
to death!” Wahlberg has about 10 minutes of
screen time opposite the always fantastic British
actress Amanda Donohoe (The Lair of the White
Worm).
The actor dropped his rap name for his first
big screen venture, the Danny DeVito comedy
Renaissance Man (1994) – better known to
Australian audiences as Army Intelligence . As one
of the army grunts being taught proper English by
DeVito’s civilian teacher, Wahlberg proved that a
rapper could also act.
This became even more apparent in The
Basketball Diaries (1995), with Wahlberg
receiving unanimous praise from critics for his
performance as Mickey, the bad boy buddy of
Leonardo Di Caprio’s heroin-addicted Jim Carroll.
Wahlberg’s tough guy persona served him well
as the psycho boyfriend of Reese Witherspoon in
Fear (1996), and while that generic thriller didn’t
stretch his acting ability, he delivered another
solid performance as an Irish grifter in the Bill
Paxton-produced Traveller (1997).
It was his role as porn star Dirk Diggler in
Boogie Nights (1997), Paul Thomas Anderson’s
paean to the ‘70s adult film biz, that proved there
was more to this boy from Boston than rap and
Calvins. “It was a showstopper, and it had a good
screenplay, a real story,” Wahlberg notes. He
even kept Diggler’s “special gift” – an oversized
prosthetic willy – as a souvenir after filming
wrapped. “The movie’s special gift happens to be
Mark Wahlberg, who gives a terrifically appealing
performance,” wrote Janet Maslin in the New
York Times. And her peers all agreed.
Wahlberg followed his breakout role with the
Hong Kong-style action-comedy The Big Hit
(1998), which wasn’t, but has since found a cult
following on home video. And deservedly so: it’s
a frequently hilarious, undiscovered gem.
The following year he found himself working
with Fear director James Foley once again on The
Corruptor, which partnered him with Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon star Chow Yun Fat, as an
NYPD cop embroiled in a Triad turf war.
MARK WAHLBERG
From rap and Calvins to the Hollywood A-List.
David O. Russell’s gulf war satire Three
Kings (1999) is another underrated gem starring
Wahlberg, although these days it’s remembered
more as the movie in which star George Clooney
punched out his director on the set.
The ‘00s
“I want people to come see my films
and enjoy them, but at the end of the
day you can’t control what people
think.”
Set in New York’s rail yards, where corporate
corruption is rampant, The Yards (2000) was the
first of two working class crime dramas Wahlberg
made with writer-director James Gray and co-star
Joaquin Phoenix.
The same year he was reunited with George
Clooney in the big budget adventure flick The
Perfect Storm, based on the true-life account of
fishing boat Andrea Gail’s turbulent encounter
with the titular weather front.
Wahlberg turned down a role in Ocean’s
Eleven for the chance to work with Tim Burton.
Too bad it was in the director’s much maligned
“reimagination” of Planet of the Apes (2001).
While the film was a disaster, Wahlberg backed
Burton, citing studio interference as the reason
for its failure. “They didn’t have the script right,”
he told MTV Movies blog. “They had a release
date before he had shot a foot of film. They
were pushing him and pushing him in the wrong
direction. You have got to let Tim do his thing.”
The actor drew on his former rap career and
socialising with rockers to play a tribute band
singer who gets to front the real thing in Rock
Star (2001), a role inspired by Judas Priest tribute
band vocalist Tim “Ripper” Owens. While he
didn’t do his own singing, research included
going to “as many concerts as I could”. Nice
work if you can get it.
The following year he starred in another terrible
remake,The Truth About Charlie, Jonathan
Demme’s update of the 1963 classic Charade.
Wahlberg has since told the truth about The Truth
About Charlie, describing it as “pretty awful” and
his “worst role ever”.
Another year, another remake of a classic film,
albeit this time a more successful one. The Italian
Job (2003) saw Wahlberg in the role made famous
by Michael Caine – master thief Charlie Croker, who
orchestrates a daring heist involving Mini-Coopers.
020 FEBRUARY 2015 JB HI-FI
FEATURE
Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch
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