Making His Mark

As a very smartly-dressed Mark Wahlberg greets me his suitably smartly decorated Merrion suite, the self-assured but humble Contraband star appears a million miles away from the bling and baggy pants of his Funky Bunch days. With only his Boston drawl betraying his roots, the rapper-turned-actor-turned prolific film and television producer is now 40, and his Oscar-nominated acting and producing has all but eclipsed lingering memories of his rap career and criminal record.

But though you can take the boy out of Massachusetts, you can’t take Massachusetts out of the boy. Producing and starring in the action thriller Contraband, Wahlberg plays an ex-smuggler who keeps being drawn back into a life of crime. The actor admits that it brought him back to his wild teenage years that were littered with assault charges and arrests.
“I do identify with the character. He’s the kind of guy that I would like to root for.” In order to keep himself grounded, Wahlberg states that he not only visits his hometown as much as possible, he also remains faithful to his Catholic upbringing by visiting a church daily.
“My wife gives me a hard time about it, telling me I don’t need to go every day, or getting sarcastic, calling me Saint Mark,” he says, “but it’s my thing. I come from the real world, I know what it’s like to not have anything. And I know that I could go back at any time.”
Though that’s not likely to happen soon. Acting aside, his ever-increasing portfolio of impressive producer credits now include Entourage, In Treatment, Boardwalk Empire, The Fighter and now Contraband, and the star admits that he may now prefer producing – though it has turned him into a “control freak.”
“Don’t get me wrong, there are certain movies that I’ll turn up on and I’m just an actor for hire. I’m doing far less of them now. In the grand scheme of things, in terms of controlling my own destiny and controlling where my career goes now, I want to be in complete control.”
As I talk to Wahlberg, the world is readying itself for the Oscars that weekend, and he begins musing about the merits of the awards, admitting that he didn’t think his nominated role in The Departed was his strongest performance.
“I was just fucking improvising and insulting people, doing what I normally do! I didn’t think it was as good as Boogie Nights or Three Kings. I think they gave me an opportunity to show off a lot more range. But I was thrilled to be nominated as a producer on The Fighter. I really was the one pushing that movie along for so long, that I felt more connected to the film as a producer and a driving force behind the film, than I even did through my performance. So whenever I was promoting the movie or campaigning, it was always about the movie, and not me.”
However, he may have been the only one of the cast members who embraced that view. Wahlberg’s co-star Melissa Leo caused a huge controversy in Tinsel Town when her shameless and horrendously expensive ‘For Your Consideration’ ads that flooded the media. Though Wahlberg diplomatically avoids mentioning Leo, he isn’t shy in stating that the prestige of the Academy has been diluted by the political self-promotion that has become rampant.
“It’s one thing to be out there promoting your movie, and it’s another thing to say, ‘Reward me, reward me’. Since I made The Departed, people ask me do I want to make more movies that will take me back to the awards. I want to make movies the audience enjoys.”
And one project in the works that will definitely please fans is the upcoming Entourage movie, which Wahlberg confirms will be happening once the script is finalised. And despite the ill-fate of many television series that transition to the big screen, the producer isn’t at all worried that the film will suffer the vitriol that critics and fans alike heaped onto similar adaptations, like Sex And The City.
“I have no fear. Genuinely. The level of interest in incredible, everyone is always asking me about it, asking when it’s going to happen. And the first Sex And The City movie was a hit, it reignited their syndication. The problem was that the second movie sucked! And they completely ignored the audience and what they came to love, and replaced it with riding around on camels and shit.”
I have to admit, I was not expecting Mark Wahlberg to have an innate understanding of the Sex And The City universe.
“Hey now!” he protests. “I just want to understand the business so I had to go see the movies, plus the wife is a fan!”
A likely story.
“Hey trust me, you think I want to sit at a big screen and watch some guy’s dick in the shower?” he laughs. ”Not my thing!”

Contraband is in cinemas March 16.