Wahlberg goes the extra mile
In Mile 22, Mark Wahlberg stars as Jimmy Silva, the leader of an elite paramilitary team charged with transporting foreign intelligence asset, Li Noor (The Raid’s Iko Uwais, here in his first major Hollywood role), from the relative safety of a US Embassy in Southeast Asia to an airfield for extraction — a distance of 22 miles from the city center.
Silva’s mission, of course, proves hardly a walk in the park. With Noor holding the key to encrypted information needed to prevent an imminent terrorist attack in exchange for safe transport to a refuge in the US, Silva’s team (featuring Ronda Rousey and The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan), must fight their way, mile by mile, through a dangerous urban landscape as local forces close in, determined to prevent his escape.
Mile 22 marks the fourth collaboration between Wahlberg and his go-to director, Peter Berg. Their first pairing came in 2013 with the critically acclaimed, Lone Survivor, featuring the Academy Award nominated-actor as Marcus Luttrell in the story of an ill-fated US Navy SEAL mission in Afghanistan. Their follow-up, 2016’s Deepwater
Horizon, cast Wahlberg as Mike Williams, the last man to escape the infamous oil rig, followed by Patriots Day (also released in 2016), a gripping account of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath. While the new movie marks a departure from their previous focus on true-life stories, the action-packed thriller is nevertheless infused by the real-world culture of special ops forces, with an overall aesthetic that eschews CGI spectacle for the grit of close-quarters combat.
Wahlberg met with the press in Los Angeles where he discussed the making of the film, as Mile 22 readied for its premiere.
Did you personally meet with any operatives?
“I met with former CIA people who were consultants on the movie. But I didn’t meet with any active operatives… When we went to the US Embassy in Bogota (where much of the film’s exteriors were shot), we could kind of guess who we thought was who. But we didn’t have access to them. They’d kind of stick their heads out the door as we were walking by with the ambassador, say hello, and shut the door. And we’re like, ‘Why can’t we go in those rooms and talk to those people?’ ‘Well, let us
introduce you to our active marines who are on the base...’ But again, (writer) Lea (Carpenter) had vast knowledge of that world and the people that live and operate in that world. So, it was enough for us to feel confident that we were making a compelling story.”
This is a very different part for you this time around. Was that part of the attraction?
“Yes. Initially when Pete first came to me with the idea, it was like he was almost a secondary villain. And then it just kind of evolved into Jimmy being the focus of the story as we went on and he developed (the script)… It looked like it was something different and exciting and I hadn’t really played a bad guy in quite a while, so that was the initial appeal. Even though he’s (now) the lead, he definitely lives and exists in this gray area.”
What is it about Peter Berg that keeps you coming back for more? You said you did the movie because you wanted to have fun — did you guys have a good time making the film?
“Oh, we had a great time. I mean, the only time that was difficult, just because of the amount of time I was away from my family, was in Colombia. I was going home every weekend (while filming interiors in Atlanta) and then we were shooting six-day-weeks for three-weeks. So, I couldn’t go home. That was the only hard part. But Pete and I? You know, we get each other. We love each other. We bring the best out of each other and we really understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We love working together.”
This is a fictional story, but it touches on real threats, Russian spies, things that are actually out there. When you work on a film like this, does it make you think about the kind of world we live in today? Does it scare you, sometimes, what’s going on?
“Obviously, we’re all privy to a lot more information than we were in the past. But all this stuff has been going on for a very long time. And it’s good to know that these people are out there. There’s a lot of crazy things and bad things happening in the world. Imagine how much of it is being prevented as opposed to the things that do happen that we are aware of.”
Mile 22 opens nationwide on Oct. 10.