DADDY’S HOME
Bad boy goes straight
Mark Wahlberg was in Chicago to talk, but he wasn’t there to talk about movies — not even his upcoming one, Daddy’s Home 2. The actor was at the UIC Pavilion on the University of Illinois/Chicago campus for a faith-based discussion with young people. Not many movie stars spend their time on such things, but for Wahlberg it’s a priority.
“Any time I can share my story and experience, I will,” he said. “I made the impossible possible.”
Wahlberg isn’t shy talking about his past, growing up Catholic in Boston and then getting into some trouble, trouble enough to land him in prison while he was still a teenager.
“I needed guidance and needed to refocus,” he said. “I try to encourage kids to depend on their faith. I wouldn’t be here today without it.”
In Daddy’s Home 2, which opened on Friday, Wahlberg reprises his role from Daddy’s Home (2015), a hit worth US$150 million at the box office. He plays alpha-male divorced father Dusty Mayron, whose ex-wife (Linda Cardellini) is happily remarried to sweet, people-pleasing Brad (Will Ferrell), the stepfather of his two young children.
“A lot of films paint the stepfather as the bad guy,” Wahlberg said. “That’s not the case here. Will’s character, Brad, continues to try so hard to win over the kids. In the sequel we’re made some progress. We’re trying to be co-parents who have this united front. We have a deal to be on the same page to give the kids a perfect Christmas.”
That deal is tested, however, when the grandfathers come to town for the holidays. Mel Gibson plays Dusty’s old-school, tough-talking, take-no-prisoners father and John Lithgow is Brad’s sweet, kissy-huggy marshmallow of a dad.
“Mel was great as my dad,” Wahlberg said. “His character is pretty aggressive in such a funny way.”
It wasn’t Gibson who sold him on the film, though, but Ferrell.
“It was just so much fun to reunite with Will,” Wahlberg said. “It’s our third film together. He’s the funniest guy in the world, a great dad and a really sweet guy.”
“Mark is a great dramatic actor,” Ferrell said in a separate interview, “but he’s also great at comedy. He commits the same way I do. He just goes for it.”
Wahlberg said that mixing comedies such as the Daddy’s Home movies with dramas such as Patriot’s Day (2016), which told the story of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, keeps his acting fresh.
“It’s important for me to mix it up,” he said. “It’s great to do a big, broad comedy, but then there’s something deep about doing a film like Patriot’s Day, where there is a pressure to get it right.
“I knew my hometown would hold me accountable.” Wahlberg grew up in the Dorchester section of Boston, where his mother was a bank clerk and nurse’s aide. His father was a delivery driver.
“There were a lot of us,” he said with a laugh. “Being the youngest of nine wasn’t odd. It was common where I grew up. My parents were like everyone else and spent their time just trying to put a lot of food on the table.”
It wasn’t always easy.
“I was jealous of the kids who went to private school,” Wahlberg recalled. “I was envious of the kids who got to wear a uniform. I’d get on the train and get into trouble before I even got to school. I imagined they had a different kind of life, without the trouble.”
Movies were a mainstay at the family home.
“I grew up loving movies,” Wahlberg recalled. “That’s how I bonded with my dad. He would take me from a very early age to see inappropriate movies for my age. My very first movie ever was Hard Times (1975), with Charles Bronson. It was bare-knuckle fighting, and I couldn’t get the images out of my head. My dad would sneak in a six-pack and bring me milk and cookies.”
At 16 Wahlberg was arrested on assault charges and served 45 days in jail.
“There’s nothing more frightening, at age 16, then hearing jailhouse doors close behind you,” he said.
Once sprung, he set out to straighten out his life, beginning with rapping. It wasn’t long before he was the leader of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch and had a platinum hit in Good Vibrations, from his debut album Music for the People (1991). It was produced by his brother Donnie, who would go on to sing in New Kids on the Block and become an actor in his own right.
With his music career flourishing, Wahlberg developed a second career as a model, notably for Calvin Klein underwear. Acting? Never gave it a thought.
“I thought, ‘I’m a bad-ass rapper, I will never act,’” he recalled. “I was pushed to go to acting meetings and said no quite a bit when I was younger. I didn’t think it was for me.”
It was actress-turned-director Penny Marshall who finally convinced him otherwise.
“I went to a meeting just to meet Penny — I loved watching her on TV as a kid,” Wahlberg said. “Penny said, ‘How come you don’t want to be an actor?’ I said, ‘I’m a rapper.’ She said, ‘You act like a rapper. You can act other things.’”
Wahlberg made his movie debut in Marshall’s Renaissance Man (1994), playing a troubled soldier brought out of his shell by an inspiring teacher (Danny DeVito), and went on to The Basketball Diaries (1995), Boogie Nights (1997), Three Kings (1999), The Perfect Storm (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), Ted (2012), Lone Survivor (2013), Deepwater Horizon (2016) and two Transformers movies. He received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor for Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2007).
He’s long since earned his stripes as a producer, notably for The Fighter (2011), which was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture, and a number of television series, among them Entourage (2004-11), Boardwalk Empire (2010-14), How to Make It in America (2010-11) and the current Ballers.
“I’ve always wanted to create my own work and not wait for someone to pass and then get the call,” Wahlberg said.
He credits his career longevity to working with the right people.
“I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of talented people,” he said. “I worked with Robert Duvall, James Caan, Jack Nicholson, Denzel Washington and John Malkovich. People ask, ‘Are you intimidated?’ The answer is no — you work with these guys and they make you look good.”
Later this year he’ll be seen in Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World. It’s the based-on-fact story of the 1973 kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer). His desperate mother (Michelle Williams) struggles to convince her ex-father-in-law, billionaire oilman John Paul Getty (Kevin Spacey), to pay his grandson’s ransom. Wahlberg plays a former CIA operative who is Getty’s business manager.
Wahlberg also is having fun moonlighting in the burger business with Wahlburgers, a restaurant chain he formed with his brothers Donnie and Paul.
His favourite item on the menu? “That would be the Thanksgiving burger, which comes with stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce,” said the super-toned, radically buff actor, who added that he himself saves that meal for “my cheat day — and then I hit the gym”.
His commitment to helping youngsters is something close to the heart of this father of four. He helms the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation and raises funds for youth services.
“I think kids tend to look for the wrong role models,” Wahlberg said. “For me it was the cool guy on the corner with the pretty girl and the nice car who was doing the wrong things. Why not look to your faith or those who serve the community?”
Wahlberg lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Rhea Durham, and their four children, Ella Rae, Grace, Michael and Brendan.
At their home, 15 minutes of each morning is set aside for prayer. “We get up and have prayer time as a family,” Wahlberg said. “It starts the day out right and helps me in every way.”
There’s nothing more frightening, at age 16, then hearing jailhouse doors close behind you
MARK WAHLBERG