Postcard from LA
Scotland’s Mr Showbiz drops us a postcard from Hollywood
When I’m asked to recommend a scary movie, I always say any where Gerry Butler has to do an accent. The man himself always takes it in the spirit I intend it – one of heartless mockery!
Gerry always laughs at it, though, and gives as good as he gets.
I was chatting to Hollywood action star Mark Wahlberg last week about his new movie, Spenser Confidential, and we were having a chat about accents.
I broke out my line about Gerry because Mark was struggling after I asked him to try a Scottish accent.
“That’s terrible!” said Mark. “I’ll say that to him next time I see him.”
“You don’t want me to do my Gerry Butler right now, or my Sean Connery.”
Mark ended up giving the Scottish accent a bash, too, but said he was feeling a bit shy.
Which is a shame as his Shir Shean wash pretty shpot on!
Mark was in London recently and popped up on Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway where he revealed his favourite word – “delightful” – delivered in an English accent.
“Delightful! I was saying it all the time,” he laughed as he recounted the time he discovered the word on set in London.
“It was another grey, wet nasty day. I was like: ‘How do you stand this nasty weather?’
“My buddy, who was from London, was like, ‘It’s delightful!
“So that was my word. I just started saying it and they had me say it on the show.”
Spenser Confidential is a fun movie, shot in Mark’s home town.
“The accent is something most people shouldn’t attempt,” he laughed. “You put me and Winston Duke together and that’s just fun, and Alan Arkin improvising with me in Boston, it’s just fun!
“Boston is a real character in the movie, we shot on the street I grew upon.
“I didn’t know they’d picked that street. All of a sudden I’m looking at the schedule and thinking ‘Pevril Street?’
“Alan Arkin’s character lives at 24 Pevril Street – I grew up in 25.
“So I was sitting on my old stoop, waiting for them to set up shots. Pretty cool!
“Neighbours came around, old friends were coming out of the woodwork.
“But, more importantly, kids from the neighbourhood, not knowing that I had lived there were thinking: ‘I’m growing up in a bad neighbourhood but if Mark Wahlberg can turn it around then I can turn it around too’.”
Mark has just finished shooting in a new film in London which is out soon.
He plays Evan Michaels, a man who tries to become accepted by the Cognomina, a secret society of people who have complete recall of their past lives.
I would like to recall my past lives.
First, though, I’d like to recall what I did at Hogmanay when I had the third sherry after The Bells...