Mark Wahlberg is the exception to the rule that sugar-pop teen idols can’t become movie stars. Countless musicians have failed where Wahlberg has greatly succeeded, as his rapid descent from pop stardom in the mid-90s turned into one of the most stunning acting careers of the past ten years.
>Wahlberg was born on June 5, 1971 to working-class parents in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a low-income neighborhood in Boston where he grew up with his 8 siblings. Mark had a troubled youth, dabbling in drugs and crime until he landed himself in jail at the age of 16 for assault. By the time the hunky teen was released from prison, his older brother Donnie Wahlberg had become a star with his popular boy band New Kids on the Block. Wanting to help his younger brother, Donnie set Mark up with a recording contract and a group of dancers, an act which became Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. As New Kids was losing its early popularity, Marky Mark was on the rise after their first album “Music for the People” became a smash hit on the strength of its single “Good Vibrations”. Enormously popular with teen girls, Wahlberg was famous for his bad boy attitude and penchant for stripping down to his briefs onstage. Such qualities led him to a hugely lucrative underwear modeling contract with Calvin Klein, which put him and supermodel Kate Moss on the map while the group’s second album “You Gotta Believe” was failing on the charts.
The failure of “You Gotta Believe” can be attributed to various factors, Wahlberg’s lack of vocal talent among them. He was also facing a string of criminal charges that surfaced during the height of his musical fame, which included allegations of racism and homophobia. Wahlberg soon cleaned up his act, publicly apologized for several incidents, and turned to acting despite deserved derision from media critics. Surprisingly, Wahlberg proved everyone wrong with sensitive performances in 1994’s “Renaissance Man” and 1995’s searing teen drama “The Basketball Diaries”. The talented actor chose his roles carefully, and received critical acclaim for Paul Thomas Anderson’s terrific “Boogie Nights”, which saw Wahlberg portray a naïve wannabe actor who ascends to fame as a porn star. In addition to the award-winning “Boogie Nights”, later films “Three Kings” and “The Yards” were showcases for his raw abilities, particularly his talent at eliciting empathy for troubled characters that threaten to explode in bouts of physical and emotional violence.
Recent years have seen Wahlberg morph into a full-bodied movie star, with lead roles in high-profile blockbusters like “The Perfect Storm”, Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes” remake, “The Truth About Charlie”, “The Italian Job”, and last year’s surprise hit “Four Brothers”. Wahlberg has also kept his indie cred alive with 2004’s hilarious “I Heart Huckabees”, which starred fellow cine-hipsters Jason Schwartzman, Naomi Watts, and Lily Tomlin. His latest film is the sports inspirational “Invincible”, and this fall he stars with the jaw-dropping cast of Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed”, which includes Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Vera Farmiga.