Family man

Mark Wahlberg talks with Michele Manelis about his film Instant Family, in which he and Rose Byrne play parents who adopt three young children

Actors always say not to work with kids and animals. What was your experience working with kids?

Working with the kids was fun because, here’s the great thing, they are not your kids. If they are getting out of hand or being unruly, the parents will come in and they’ll handle them.

Do your kids rebel in the same way you did as a kid?

No, but we live in a secluded area so they can’t get around on their own. It’s not like they can just climb out the back window and walk down the hill. I lived in a very small neighbourhood and my parents worked most of the time to put food on the table so we were pretty much left to our devices.

How do you want this movie to change the way we view adoption?

Some kids end up in homes that aren’t the best or safest places for them, but then there are a lot of people out there who are giving their hearts and homes to kids in need. Hopefully, this movie will encourage more people to do so.

After having four kids, are you more secure as a father?

Well, more secure in a certain way. I remember the first time holding my daughter and how nervous I was. Thankfully, I had my wife [model Rhea Durham] there. She is a rock, she handles everything.

What keeps you up at night these days when it comes to worrying about your kids?

There’s just different things to worry about: kids going out, drugs, alcohol, all of those things, and boys. I think everything is different and constantly changing so it’s beautiful in that way. A lot of difficult times obviously, but I think

I was more nervous with the second baby because [with the first] you don’t know all the things that could go wrong and it just kind of happened and it was fun and we had the baby.

Do you approve of the boys your daughter dates?

You have to just accept that it’s inevitable and that she is going to have boyfriends and eventually, hopefully, get married. I actually had a friend’s son call me directly to ask if he could take my daughter to the dance and he asked me if I wanted to talk with him in person to discuss. I said “No, you are good to go.” So that was very nice. Very refreshing.

You’re the youngest of nine children. What were the advantages of being the youngest?

The youngest is usually perceived as being spoiled but I think by the time I came around, my parents were just exhausted. So I didn’t get doted on the way people probably thought. It certainly gave me the drive and the desire and the competitiveness to want to be able to win and succeed and beat up my brothers who tortured me for a long time. You had to really be a scrapper to be able to survive.

How was it working with Rose Byrne?

She’s a pain in the ass and she likes to torture me. She pokes me and hits me and gives me a hard time about everything and makes fun of me. But what I love about her is that she’s similar to me. She comes in super prepared and she is all about the work and she just tries to make the scenes as real as possible.

What do your kids think of your music?

Sheer embarrassment. I was at my son’s football game two weeks ago and nobody knew

I was there. It was in a football stadium and all of a sudden

Good Vibrations comes on.

My wife started laughing and my son buried his head on the bench and

[said], “Oh my God.”

I wasn’t embarrassed, but clearly he was.

What do you want most out of life?

The most important thing I have to do right now is to make sure I raise my kids the right way. If I succeed in business but fail as a father, then that is a bad thing. I know that

I have been put in this position for a reason — what do I do with my gift, with my platform, and what kind of an impact am I going to have on people? Those are definitely the things that I think about.

How does your past impact you?

I don’t think I was put in this position to forget about where I came from. There’s a lot of kids growing up in similar situations that hopefully will be inspired by me. If I can come from Boston having had no education and still become very successful, it can certainly give them hope that if there is a will, there is a way.

You’ve been working out and eating clean — how is that going?

I feel good. I wake up in the morning and have no hangover. I do my exercise and reading before anyone wakes up. It’s the 4am Club and many famous people are saying, “Oh, I want to come over and do this workout.” Octavia Spencer called me and said, “I am in the 4am Club.”

How did that work out?

Phone rings and I was like, “Who is calling me at this time of the day?” And it’s like, “You have Octavia Spencer here at the gate.” So she comes and works out and she is absolutely amazing.

You’ve been married for nine years — that equals 50 in celebrity years. What’s your secret?

We communicate. Obviously, we have our ups and downs like anybody else but we just love each other and we feel really fortunate that we have each other. We are a great team. We are more in love now than ever before.

Where do you go to escape and relax?

My quiet time is 4 in the morning in my prayer room and then I go downstairs to the gym and follow that with making a protein shake at 5 in the morning. It’s all very harmonious at that time.

Sounds very Zen. Do you lose your temper at all?

Oh, I lose my temper once in a while. I think you should save that question for other people around me. But I am more mellow now than I was in the past, I can say that.