Garth: What?
Wayne: I'm sorry, that was an inside thought.
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American actor and former musician. After a troubled youth that saw numerous brushes with Johnny Law (along with committing numerous hate crimes against both Black and Asian people), Wahlberg's older brother Donnie (of the New Kids on the Block) arranged an entry-point into the music business (though personal agreements made him decide against permanently joining the New Kids). Now styling himself as Marky Mark (accompanied by the Funky Bunch), Wahlberg became a rap star. Their most successful single was "Good Vibrations" (not to be confused with The Beach Boys song). This period in his career is often regarded as being rather Narmy, even by fans and Wahlberg himself. By the mid-1990s, he began to make the transition into acting, and became an even bigger success than before, both commercially and, with his role in Boogie Nights, critically. He even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Departed.
He has also served as the executive producer of Entourage which is loosely based on his experiences as an up-and-coming actor. He was also an executive producer of Boardwalk Empire, and he appears in the A&E series Wahlburgers, which focuses on his brother Paul's efforts to expand his restaurant business in Boston.
Not to be confused with Mark L. Walberg.
The films of Mark Wahlberg include:
- The Basketball Diaries (1995)
- Fear (1996)
- Boogie Nights (1997)
- The Big Hit (1998)
- Three Kings (1999)
- The Corruptor (1999)
- The Perfect Storm (2000)
- Planet of the Apes (2001)
- Rock Star (2001)
- The Italian Job (2003)
- I ♥ Huckabees (2004)
- Four Brothers (2005)
- The Departed (2006)
- Invincible (2006)
- Shooter (2007)
- We Own The Night (2007) (also producer)
- Max Payne (2008)
- The Happening (2008)
- The Lovely Bones (2009)
- Date Night (2010)
- The Other Guys (2010)
- The Fighter (2010)
- Contraband (2012)
- Ted (2012)
- Broken City (2013)
- Pain & Gain (2013)
- 2 Guns (2013)
- Lone Survivor (2013)
- Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
- The Gambler (2014)
- Ted 2 (2015)
- Daddy's Home (2015)
- Patriots Day (2016)
- Deepwater Horizon (2016)
- Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
- Daddys Home 2 (2017)
- All the Money in the World (2017)
- Mile 22 (2018)
- Instant Family (2018)
- SCOOB! (2020)
- Spenser Confidential (2020)
- Infinite (2021)
- Uncharted (2022)
Discography:
- Music for the People (1991)
- You Gotta Believe (1992)
- Life in the Streets (1995)
Tropes in Mark Wahlberg's acting work:
- Dark and Troubled Past: He had over 20 run ins with the Boston police as a youth, developed a cocaine addiction at age 13, and spent time in prison for nearly beating a man to death. He committed at least 2 hate crimes and attacked little girls while calling them the N word.
- Hunk: His ripped musculature has a lot of fans.
- Motor Mouth: One of his favorite acting moves; when his character is upset, angry, or scared, he starts to babble.
- Mr. Fanservice: He made great use of his terrific physique to get his career off the ground, most famously in ads for Calvin Klein.
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Possibly wisely, Wahlberg makes no attempt to alter his native accent, and just talks like the Southie he is, even when his characters are supposed to be from Chicago or Wyoming, for instance. One of the only aversions came with his portrayal of Texan Mike Williams in Deepwater Horizon, for which he uses a more southern dialect.
- Old Shame:
- From Inside the Actor's Studio, when asked his least favorite word: "Is Marky Mark a word?"
- He once said that actress Amy Adams "dodged a bullet" by not getting cast in The Happening and described the film as as "a bad movie that I did."
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: His roles can involve a decent amount of profanity. Taken up to eleven in The Departed where he barely goes one sentence without profanity.
- Shirtless Scene: Frequently. Lampooned a bit in Date Night, where he is shirtless in every scene he's in.
- Triple Nipple: He's got one, but it doesn't detract from being Mr. Fanservice; he's even called it his "prized possession".
