Years before Mark Wahlberg dabbled in ego-drenched music videos, larger-than-life porn characters and Oscar-worthy performances, he was almost part of one of the most successful pop music groups of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As the youngest child in his Boston family, he was approached by his brother, Donnie Wahlberg, to join an aspiring musical group called New Kids on the Block. With a keen interest in music already — and a special appreciation for rapping — Wahlberg joined the group, but quickly bailed when he realized that the group’s proposed style and music didn’t match his own tastes.
While the New Kids on the Block became instant teen idols a few years later, Mark Wahlberg pondered life as a juvenile delinquent instead. Following the divorce of his parents, he gained a dependency on cocaine and became a regular enemy of the Boston Police Department. His lowest point came at age 17, when he spent 45 days in an adult prison for a violent, drug-fueled assault inside a pharmacy. Wahlberg’s stint with other prison folk was the eye-opener needed to discourage him from continuing the criminal lifestyle.
Mark Wahlberg becomes marky mark and stars in boogie nights
Still a bad boy, but no longer a jailbird, Mark Wahlberg gave up the thug life and re-entered the music scene in 1991 under the name of Marky Mark. Together with a group of supporting players that were dubbed The Funky Bunch, Wahlberg released their first album, Music for the People, and their debut single, “Good Vibrations.” With Donnie Wahlberg onboard as the album’s producer, Mark Wahlberg watched as the single went platinum and his popularity soared. Besides exposing his bulging pecs and finely chiseled body through regular plays of the “Good Vibrations” music video, Wahlberg also joined his brother on tour as the opening act for New Kids on the Block.
After realizing that his career as Marky Mark would only be good enough to earn him a label as a one-hit wonder, Mark Wahlberg switched to modeling in 1992. Working with the legendary Calvin Klein, he stripped down to boxer briefs and regularly adorned New York City’s giant billboards — sometimes flanked by supermodel Kate Moss.
A fateful meeting with director Penny Marshall inspired Mark Wahlberg to try acting and he did just that as a soldier getting insight from eccentric teacher Danny DeVito in her 1994 film, Renaissance Man. In his two subsequent films, Mark Wahlberg showed range and menace as the druggy pal of Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries and an obsessed admirer of young Reese Witherspoon in Fear. Already holding a sexual reputation for his earlier music videos and underwear ads, Wahlberg used it to his advantage by playing the well-endowed Eddie Adams, also known as Dirk Diggler, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, a detailed look at the adult film industry of the 1970s and ‘80s. As the glue holding the film together, Wahlberg’s commanding and sympathetic performance (complete with a prosthetic unit) showed that his evolution from rapper to model to actor was complete.
Mark Wahlberg stars in the departed and the other guys
Boogie Nights added Mark Wahlberg to the wish-list of many actors and directors who were eager to work with him. Two of his favorite collaborators became George Clooney with whom he starred in the Iraqi war film, Three Kings and the real-life storm thriller, The Perfect Storm, and David O.Russell, who directed him in Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees. While some of these films were outright hits (The Yards, The Italian Job) and others were not as well-received (Planet of the Apes, The Truth About Charlie), all of the films showed a new side of Wahlberg that further showcased his range and how serious he was willing to take each acting opportunity.
After playing the inspirational real-life football hero Vince Papale in Invincible, Mark Wahlberg returned to his native Massachusetts to work under the guidance of the legendary Martin Scorsese and share the screen once again with Leonardo DiCaprio in The Departed. As the hot-headed Sgt. Sean Dignam, Mark Wahlberg added smoldering intensity each time he was on-screen and earned a Golden Globe nomination and Oscar nomination in the process.
Following more conventional roles in Shooter, We Own the Night, The Happening, and Max Payne, Wahlberg tested his dramatic chops once more as the grieving father of a murder victim for director Peter Jackson in The Lovely Bones. In 2010, Mark Wahlberg joined Will Ferrell for the buddy cop comedy The Other Guys before reuniting with director David O. Russell for The Fighter as real-life boxer Micky Ward.
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