How Donnie Wahlberg suffered for his role in ‘The Sixth Sense’
There are some roles actors will do anything to pull off.
For Donnie Wahlberg that was Vincent Gray, the disturbed former mental patient who propels 1999’s “The Sixth Sense” into darkness after he breaks in and kills his former psychiatrist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), before shooting himself.
The 28-year-old Wahlberg, who jumped to fame as a founding member of New Kids On the Block, had to fight to convince writer/director M. Night Shyamalan that he could take on the pivotal part – Gray serves as the tragic predecessor to Cole Sear (11-year-old Haley Joel Osment), who sees “dead people.”
Shyamalan’s leap-of-faith casting compelled Wahlberg to take an allconsuming journey, losing 43 pounds, to enter Gray’s disturbed mindset.
As “The Sixth Sense” turns 20 on Aug. 6, the three-minute Gray scene remains utterly unforgettable, more so in light of how perfecting it haunted Wahlberg.
“This was a game-changer for me. Every day for years people would say, ‘Dude, I didn’t know that was you,’ ” says “Blue Bloods” star Wahlberg, now 49. “At that time, I did exactly what I needed to do for the role. I had to look like I was going through hell.”
He cried when he read the script
Wahlberg, who starred as a kidnapper in 1996’s “Ransom,” picked up the “Sixth Sense” script during a 1998 flight and was consumed as he turned the pages. “I totally started crying on the plane,” he says. But he was convinced there was not a part for him, especially not heroin-abusing, emaciated Gray.
“Nothing about me was right for the part, except for my total enthusiasm for