Mark Wahlberg

words by > Bret Love

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

Though roles in films such as Invincible have elevated him onto the A-list of Hollywood’s leading men, it’s unlikely that Mark Wahlberg would have been voted among Tinseltown’s Most Likely To Succeed even as recently as a decade ago. Born the youngest of nine children in a working-class district of Boston, he dropped out of high school at the age of 14—three years after his parents divorced— and turned to a life of petty crime and drugs. At age 16, he was convicted of assault against two men during a robbery attempt and wound up spending nearly two months behind bars.

It was there that he found the motivation to abandon his life of crime in favor of following older brother Donnie, who was then topping the charts with New Kids On the Block, into the world of entertainment. “Not to sound like a saint, because I’m still far from one,” admits Wahlberg, “but those two months in jail were where I had an epiphany. I knew that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life locked up. I might have been acting like an animal, but I didn’t want to be a caged one. I started lifting weights in jail and went from 130 pounds of scrawniness to 170 pounds of muscle that year.”

Upon his release, Donnie offered his brother a chance to join his successful singing group. But while Mark yearned to abandon thug life, “I didn’t want to be bouncing around on stage with five or six pretty boys either,” he says. Instead, Donnie used his connections to arrange a meeting with some record producers, and soon Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch were on the pop charts with rap-influenced dance hits like “Good Vibrations,” while Wahlberg’s well-sculpted physique became iconic via a series of high-profile underwear ads for Calvin Klein.

Though he was no longer living a life of petty crime, Wahlberg’s bad boy mystique lingered, and he remained a tabloid favorite, with rumored fights (including a notorious run-in with Madonna’s entourage) and charges for allegedly assaulting a security guard. In 1994, after his second album tanked, a humbled Wahlberg was cast in a small role in director Penny Marshall’s Renaissance Man. Though the movie failed to make much of an impression and Wahlberg was dismissed as yet another has-been pop star trying to cross over, the acting bug had bitten hard, and the former Marky Mark has never looked back.

Asked whether his hard-knock background had helped or hindered his attempts to make a career for himself in Hollywood, Wahlberg says, “It certainly helped me in many ways, because I have so much real-life experience that I can tap into. Indirectly, I’ve been acting my entire life, even if I was just talking my way out of trouble. Acting is really just about convincing somebody, and I’ve always been trying to sell somebody something. In that sense, I’ve been doing it all along.”

If anything, Wahlberg’s rough ‘n’ tumble upbringing may have initially given casting directors a shorthand method of finding roles for the novice thespian, and several of his earliest film efforts cast him as tough characters not far removed from the reality of his troubled youth. But he admits that fighting against typecasting has been a major struggle over the course of his film career.

“I’m always trying to do something that isn’t expected, something a little different from the norm,” he acknowledges. “The first role I was really recognized for was Basketball Diaries, then Fear, and both those characters were extremely dangerous and violent, so I was pigeonholed as that guy. Luckily, we found Boogie Nights, which showed a sweet and vulnerable character. Before Boogie Nights, I only wanted to play the tough guy, because that’s the only type of guy that was accepted in my neighborhood. That movie was pivotal, because I realized I wanna take what I do seriously and show people I can do anything I want. I knew what my limitations were and what I was capable of, but that was when I decided I had to stop worrying about what the kids in the neighborhood would think.”

The result was a richer and more rewarding film career, working with respected directors such as Wolfgang Peterson (The Perfect Storm), Tim Burton (Planet of the Apes), Jonathan Demme (The Truth About Charlie) and David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees). But according to Wahlberg, the biggest change in his adult life had nothing to do with his film career; it was the 2003 birth of Ella Rae, his daughter with girlfriend Rhea Durham, a former Victoria’s Secret model.

“It put it all into perspective,” he recalls, his voice warm with emotion. “The enormity of the responsibility is just overwhelming at times, ya know? You’re holding that little girl, and if you put her down and leave her there, she’s gonna die. You’ve gotta take care of your child every second of the day. Luckily, [Rhea] is a superhero, because I don’t know if I could do it on my own. I don’t know how my mother raised nine kids. But I feel this enormous responsibility to go out and provide, even though I’m pretty well off. I’m like, ‘I gotta make sure that her future’s secure, and what about her kid’s kids?’ I immediately jumped into work mode.”

He also returned to the Catholic faith in which he’d been raised. “Where I come from,” he recalls, “you drive down the main avenue and there are 12 churches within 10 square miles. Of course, there are also 30 bars, but church and faith are all around you. We went to church as kids, but I didn’t find it exciting or appealing in any way, because there was so much going on in the streets that fascinated me. It was when I started to focus my faith that good things started happening for me. And I don’t mean professionally, but personally. It helped me get to a place where I can do what I was supposed to do with my life, which is to help kids like myself, and influence them to love one another, and respect one another, and focus on what’s important.”

Indeed, the last several years have seemed somewhat charmed for the 35-year-old actor. His first major project as a producer, “Entourage,” became a cult hit for HBO almost immediately, following film star Vince Chase—a character loosely based on Wahlberg’s life—as he navigates the vapid terrain of Los Angeles with a close circle of friends and his trusty agent. I Heart Huckabees, in which he played a character written especially for him based on conversations with director Russell about his views on faith and spirituality, earned Wahlberg the best reviews of his career.

Last year’s Invincible—based on the true rags-to-riches story of a down-on-his-luck Philadelphia Eagles fan who shows up for an open tryout for his favorite Nfl team, only to see his wildest dreams come true—earned more than three times its relatively small $17 million budget. Then, of course, there’s Martin Scorsese’s Boston-based crime thriller The Departed, one of the most

critically-acclaimed films of 2006, for which Wahlberg earned his first Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations (for Best Supporting Actor).

It has been a long, strange trip for Mark Wahlberg—from teenage hooligan to teen idol, from novice actor to accomplished thespian—and the birth of his second child (a son, Michael), in 2006, only seems to have strengthened his resolve to make the most of the immense opportunities he has been given.

“I know I have some explaining to do [to my kids],” he admits, “especially with movies like Boogie Nights. If I had a chance to do it again, I’d probably have to say no [to that role], even though it was a great thing for my career. Knowing how tough kids can be, I know mine will eventually understand when they reach a certain age, but I don’t want them to have to deal with that. I don’t have to just do kids movies from here on out, but if it’s immoral, there had better be a real serious lesson at the end of it.”

Grounded in family and faith, Wahlberg seems content these days to choose his roles carefully, and to spend more time behind the scenes. Aside from this month’s Shooter, in which he plays a marksman coaxed back into action after being framed for an attempt to kill the president, he only has one other major film on his 2007 calendar (We Own the Night, with Joaquin Phoenix and Robert Duvall). What’s more, he doesn’t seem concerned in the least about any lag in career momentum that may result.

“I’ve been doing this for too long to care anymore,” he admits matter-of-factly. “I’ve always looked at my career as an athlete would look at his. I know I won’t play forever. Some don’t know when to walk away, but the smart ones do.”