These boys just want to have fun
Berg and Wahlberg team up again for a ‘blood and guts’ action movie
LOS ANGELES Mark Wahlberg and director Peter Berg have made four films together: Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day and Mile 22.
But it’s the fourth one — a straight-up, blood and guts action movie — they both say, jokingly we think, is their version of a good time.
“Our idea of fun might be different from some other people’s,” Berg, 54, says with a shrug. “Our idea of fun is we go and make pretty violent action movies.”
And after revisiting real-life dramas — a failed 2005 U.S. Navy SEALs mission in Afghanistan (Lone Survivor), the April 20, 2010, oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico (Deepwater Horizon) and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings (Patriots Day) — it’s also their first joint film that isn’t based on a true story.
“I think after tackling real tragedies we said, ‘OK, those are complicated movies to make.’ You’re not just making a movie, you have to deal with people who’ve suffered loss,” says Wahlberg. “So we just wanted to do something where we could go off and do our own thing. We wanted to do something that was our version of having a good time.”
Mile 22 finds the two-time Oscar nominee playing James Silva, the leader of a team of secret CIA operatives dubbed Ground Branch. While operating inside a fictional country in Southeast Asia, Silva’s team (which also includes Lauren Cohan, Ronda Rousey and John Malkovich) must transport a foreign cop (played by the Raid’s martial arts sensation Iko Uwais), who holds life-saving information, from a U.S. embassy to an airfield for extraction — a distance of 22 miles. But before they get to the airstrip, the city ’s corrupt military and cops will do everything in their power to stop them.
“Like the other films we’ve done, there’s a recurring theme where we introduce the characters, set up the story and the plot and then once the action starts it’s pretty relentless,” Wahlberg says.
It’s a fictional story, written by first-time screenwriter Lea Carpenter, but it’s one that’s grounded in reality, Berg says.
“It is fiction, but it’s about the CIA’s Ground Branch, which really exists — you can Google them,” he says.
“They really are the third (military) option and they can get what they want from you in a multitude of ways. They can ask nicely, they can bribe you, they can kill you, they can kidnap your child ... they can do pretty much whatever it takes.”
For Wahlberg, no stranger to action films, it’s a character that may seem a little familiar, but he assures us it’s like none other he’s played in a career that’s spanned over two decades.
“Look, I’ve spent time with Navy SEALs, marines, secret service, CIA, politicians, but these kind of rogue warriors that get to decide who lives and who dies is just a different thing,” he says.
“Once the operation starts, they don’t answer to anybody and I’ve never met someone like that. Jimmy Silva is just about the job. He’s got no family, no nothing. He just lives and breathes (the job) every day.”
In an industry that thrives on franchises and superheroes, Berg and Wahlberg are a rare team that make films that are about big issues grounded in the real world. The pair will team up once again for Netflix’s Wonderland, based on Robert B. Parker’s Spenser detective novels, and there are rumblings that Berg may direct Wahlberg in a big-screen adaptation of TV’s The Six Million Dollar Man.
“It’s like a brotherhood,” Berg says about their working relationship. “We get along very well. We have similar tastes in life. We like the same sports, we like the same wine, we have kids the same age, our work ethics are similar, and so there’s a great affection and trust. It makes for a fun work environment. I believe it should be fun to go to work every day.
Wahlberg echoes that sense of camaraderie.
“Pete and I, we get each other, we love each other and we bring the best out of each other.”
But he’s not naming a burger at his chain of Wahlburgers restaurants that he co-owns with his brothers after his frequent collaborator.
“I’m not naming anything after Pete when it comes to the restaurant,” he says laughing.