Issue Date: February 25, 2007
"I've been very fortunate"
Mark Wahlberg's life easily could have taken a different direction. But he persevered. And Sunday night, he celebrates with Hollywood's best at the Oscars.
By Hilary de Vries
"Monkey" has made good. Not that anybody has dared to call him that since he was a kid back in Boston and still dragging around the stuffed toy that earned him his dreaded nickname. Long before the former rap star landed an Oscar nomination for "The Departed," Mark Wahlberg has defined himself on his own terms. Quite literally.
"I'm still worried about what I'm doing next."
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His first "man-to-man conversation" with his dad when he was all of 8 years old brought the hammer down on his "Monkey" phase. He wanted to be called Mike for whatever reasons an 8-year-old has. But the point is, he explains, "I've never once heard the word 'Mark' come out of my dad's mouth since." Even when Wahlberg phoned him at an assisted living center in Boston on the morning of the Oscar nominations and they both cried some "happy tears," his dad called him Mike. "He was telling everyone there, 'Hey, my son Mike just got nominated for an Academy Award!' "
For Monkey -- aka Mike, aka Marky Mark -- best supporting actor nominee is one more moniker, one more transformation in a life that has seen more than its share in Wahlberg's 35 years. Or, to put it another way, there isn't another Oscar hopeful walking the red carpet Sunday with a résumé that includes an assault conviction (he served 45 days of a two-year sentence for assault when he was 17), rap star, Calvin Klein fashion model, TV producer (HBO's "Entourage," based on Wahlberg's own life) and actor (about 20 or so movies and counting, including "Shooter," an action thriller opening next month in which he stars as a former Marine Corps sniper).
"I was arrested so many times, made so many phone calls to my parents [that] hurt them," Wahlberg says, over breakfast at the swanky Four Seasons Hotel dining room in Beverly Hills. "I felt like, with the Oscar nomination, I was finally making up for all of the mistakes I made and all the pain I had caused them." And win or not Sunday night, discussions reportedly are underway about making a sequel to "The Departed" that would feature, yes, Wahlberg's invective-spouting character.
Yes, he's got the requisite Hollywood stubble and wears a street-credible shamrock-green Boston Celtics T-shirt and hip-hop-style jeans. His eyes sweep the room every 30 seconds, and his biceps still look like they could crack a walnut. Today, from the moment he arrives, he and his two-person posse (down from the days when he used to roam Los Angeles with six guys in tow), are besieged by everyone from the doorman to the maitre d', all of whom he knows by name.
But Wahlberg says there's more to his latest incarnation than his newfound status as bona fide Hollywood star. This same dining room is where he brings his young family for brunch every Sunday after Mass. Clean-cut as an altar boy with his neatly trimmed hair and polite manner, the unmarried father of two calls his Catholic faith "the most important thing" in his life. He has two children, 3-year-old Ella and 11-month-old Michael, with girlfriend Rhea Durham, a former model. Fatherhood, he says, has completely changed his life.
Wahlberg remembers that shortly after Ella's birth, "I was petrified, but then I thought, here's my chance to really do it right," he says. "Having that special bond with her will help me in all the relationships that I have with women."
Still, it hasn't been easy. He and Durham are not married and as yet have no plans to be. "We both wanted to be parents and we have grown closer, but our relationship has been a bit of a struggle," he says.
Wahlberg says he yearned for a "normal" family after his parents split when he was 11, and he has remained close to brothers Donnie and Robert, who also are actors. But he had doubts about his ability to pull himself from the testosterone-heavy entourage that he had lived with since his underwear-model, Marky-Mark days. As Eric Weinstein, one of Wahlberg's remaining posse, says, "Mark is group-oriented, but things change, and Mark didn't need roommates anymore."
He used to love the spotlight, the paparazzi and the all-night partying with his boys, but now his routine is to get up "when it's still dark out, have breakfast with the kids and hit the gym," Wahlberg says. "I see the whole day, and I love it."
He says he'll never model again or make a movie like 1997's "Boogie Nights," in which he played a porn star. And he deeply regrets not finishing high school. He had a GED (the high school equivalency degree) within his grasp a few years ago, but he never finished all of the required tests and now has to retake the exams, something he vows to do. "I'm going to get my diploma before I have to explain that to my kids," he says.
But his regrets speech is cut short by the arrival of singer Lionel Richie, a friend since the 1990s from Wahlberg's days in the music world. "Are you working enough?" Richie jokes. The two pals banter easily about the things celebrities usually talk about. Then, the dining room manager rushes up with a special dessert plate: warm chocolate cake with the word "congratulations" spelled out on it in glossy melted Valrhona chocolate.
It's not lost on the actor that among "The Departed's" celebrated co-stars -- Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon -- he's the only one in the movie who ended up walking away with an Academy Award nomination. "I'm disappointed that [Nicholson] didn't get nominated," he confides. (DiCaprio is actually nominated in the same category, but for the movie Blood Diamond.)
Oscar kudos notwithstanding, Wahlberg insists that he is not ready to rest on his laurels. "I'm still worried about what I'm doing next," he says, sounding less like a movie star and more like a man who understands just how quickly life can change. "I'm always ready to go to the next thing."
Those who know Wahlberg say that his drive, his need to keep moving, is hard-wired. Some of it is his hardscrabble upbringing in Boston's gritty Dorchester neighborhood, where, as the youngest of nine and a high school dropout turned criminal, Wahlberg quickly learned how to survive.
"Mark came out of difficult circumstances without a chip on his shoulder," says producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who has worked with Wahlberg on five films, including his latest, "Shooter." "He's very driven to learn, to seek new opportunities, to become a better man."
For now, the actor seems to be touched, but also slightly embarrassed by all the attention. "Look, [Hollywood] is a small community, and I've been around awhile," Wahlberg says. The thing he's most happy about is perhaps something that only someone who spent all those years with all those different names and different lives can really understand. "I've been very fortunate."
Hilary de Vries is a writer and novelist who is basedin Los Angeles.
Cover photograph by Roger Erickson for USA WEEKEND
Hair by Jamie Taylor, The Wall Group; makeup by Donald Mowat, Montana Artists; styling by Samantha McMillen, The Wall Group
Clothing: shirt by J.Crew; jeans by Paper Denim & Cloth
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6 degrees of Mark Wahlberg and the Oscars
How close is Mark Wahlberg to an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor? Well, he's just 6 degrees away from previous winners ... Take a look:
He dropped out of high school, like
Paris Hilton, who has landed on Mr. Blackwell's "worst-dressed" list, like
Jane Seymour, who has different-colored eyes, like
Kate Bosworth, who starred in "Beyond the Sea" with
Kevin Spacey, who won
Best Supporting Actor for "The Usual Suspects" (1995)
He once dated
Jordana Brewster, who also dated
Derek Jeter, who attended the University of Michigan, like
Lucy Liu, who was a guest voice on "The Simpsons," like
Tim Robbins, who won
Best Supporting Actor for "Mystic River" (2003)
He modeled for Calvin Klein, like
Kate Moss, who once acted opposite
Rowan Atkinson, who was in a play with
Christian Bale, who lost 40 pounds for his role in "The Machinist," like
Denzel Washington did to play a boxer in "The Hurricane;" 10 years earlier, he won
Best Supporting Actor for "Glory" (1989)
He once released a cheesy rap album, like
Brian Austin Green, who is dating
Megan Fox, who appears in this summer's "Transformers," executive-produced by
Steven Spielberg, who directed "Hook," which starred
Robin Williams, who won
Best Supporting Actor for "Good Will Hunting" (1997)
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