Born: June 5, 1971
Before he started acting, Mark Wahlberg was best known as Marky_Mark, the pants-dropping rapper who attained fame and notoriety with his group the Funky Bunch. In the tradition of Will_Smith and Ice_Cube, Wahlberg has made a successful transition from music to film, garnering particular early praise for his role in Boogie_Nights.
Born June 5, 1971, in Dorchester, MA, Wahlberg had a troubled early life. One of nine children, he dropped out of school at 16 (he would later earn his GED) and committed a number of minor felonies.
After working various odd jobs, Wahlberg briefly joined brother Donnie and his group New Kids on the Block before forming his own, Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch. The group had widespread popularity for a time, most notably with its 1992 hit single "Good Vibrations." However, it was Wahlberg himself who received the lion's share of attention, whether it was for the homophobia controversy that surrounded him for a time, or for the 1992 Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring him wearing nothing more than his underwear, Kate_Moss, and an attitude. In 1993, Wahlberg turned his attentions to acting with a role in The_Substitute.
The film, co-starring a then-unknown Natasha_Gregson_Wagner, was a critical and commercial failure, but Wahlberg's next project, 1994's Renaissance_Man, with Danny_De_Vito, gave him the positive notices that would increase with the release of his next film, The_Basketball_Diaries (1995). Although the film received mixed reviews, many critics praised Wahlberg's performance as Mickey, Leonardo_Di_Caprio's friend and fellow junkie. Following Diaries, Wahlberg appeared in Fear (1996) in the role of Reese_Witherspoon's psychotic boyfriend.
It was with the release of Paul_Thomas_Anderson's Boogie_Nights in 1997 that Wahlberg finally received across-the-board respect for his commanding yet unassuming performance as busboy-turned-porn-star Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler. The film was nominated for three Oscars and a slew of other awards by associations ranging from the British Academy to the New York Film Critics Circle to MTV. The positive attention landed Wahlberg on a wide range of magazine covers and gave him greater Hollywood pulling power.
He had, as they say, arrived. Wahlberg's follow-up to Boogie_Nights was 1998's The_Big_Hit, an action comedy that, particularly in the wake of Boogie_Night's acclaim, proved to be a disappointment. This disappointment was hardly lessened by the relative critical and commercial shortcomings of Wahlberg's next film, The_Corruptor (1999).
An action flick that co-starred Chow Yun-Fat, The_Corruptor showcased Wahlberg's familiar macho side and indicated that success in Hollywood is a strange and unpredictable thing. Though he gained positive notice for his role in David_O._Russell' s unconventional war film Three_Kings the same year, the film was only a moderate success, paving the way for an even more dramatic turn in the downbeat true story of the ill-fated Andrea Gail, The_Perfect_Storm, in 2000.
The following year found Wahlberg filling some big shoes -- and receiving some hefty criticism as a result -- with his lead role in Tim_Burton's much-anticipated remake of Planet of the Apes. Taking over the role that Charlton_Heston made famous, Wahlberg found himself pursued onscreen by sinister simians, as well as offscreen by critics who decried the lack of depth that the actor brought to the role.
Late that summer, Wahlberg came back down to Earth -- specifically to the everyday-Joe-rises-to-fame territory of Boogie_Nights -- with Rock_Star, the story of a tribute-band singer who gets a chance to sing for the band he idolizes. Though his noble attempt to fill the considerable shoes of Hollywood legend Cary_Grant in the 2002 Charade remake The_Truth_About_Charlie would be only slightly exceeded by his assumption of the role originally played by Michael_Caine in the following year's remake of The_Italian_Job, Wahlberg would subsequently prove that there's nothing like the fresh breeze of an original script in director David_O._Russell's existential 2004 comedy I_Heart_Huckabees.
Of course, Wahlberg was never one to let a crowd down, and after riling audiences alongside Tyrese_Gibson and André_Benjamin in the Detroit-based revenge flick Four_Brothers, the athletic actor would take to the gridiron to tell the inspirational story of one football fan whose dreams of playing in the NFL actually came true in the 2006 sports drama Invincible. Also released in the fall of 2006, The_Departed allowed Wahlberg to act opposite such heavy hitters as Jack_Nicholson, Matt_Damon, Alec_Baldwin, and his old Basketball_Diaries co-star Leonardo_Di_Caprio under the direction of Martin_Scorsese. Not only did Wahlberg hold his own against the cast of critics' darlings, he landed the film's only acting Academy Award nod. In 2007, Wahlberg starred in the suspense actioner The_Shooter, as well as in director Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones.
Wahlberg starred as the leader of a ragtag group trying to survive amidst murderous plant life in M. Night Shyamalan's so-bad-it's-good The Happening (2008), and played the titular role of Max Payne, which was adapted from a video game of the same name. In 2010 the actor starred in the inspirational docudrama chronicling the life of brothers Micky and Dicky Ecklund as they take on the world of boxing.
Before he started acting, Mark Wahlberg was best known as Marky_Mark, the pants-dropping rapper who attained fame and notoriety with his group the Funky Bunch. In the tradition of Will_Smith and Ice_Cube, Wahlberg has made a successful transition from music to film, garnering particular early praise for his role in Boogie_Nights.
Born June 5, 1971, in Dorchester, MA, Wahlberg had a troubled early life. One of nine children, he dropped out of school at 16 (he would later earn his GED) and committed a number of minor felonies.
After working various odd jobs, Wahlberg briefly joined brother Donnie and his group New Kids on the Block before forming his own, Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch. The group had widespread popularity for a time, most notably with its 1992 hit single "Good Vibrations." However, it was Wahlberg himself who received the lion's share of attention, whether it was for the homophobia controversy that surrounded him for a time, or for the 1992 Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring him wearing nothing more than his underwear, Kate_Moss, and an attitude. In 1993, Wahlberg turned his attentions to acting with a role in The_Substitute.
The film, co-starring a then-unknown Natasha_Gregson_Wagner, was a critical and commercial failure, but Wahlberg's next project, 1994's Renaissance_Man, with Danny_De_Vito, gave him the positive notices that would increase with the release of his next film, The_Basketball_Diaries (1995). Although the film received mixed reviews, many critics praised Wahlberg's performance as Mickey, Leonardo_Di_Caprio's friend and fellow junkie. Following Diaries, Wahlberg appeared in Fear (1996) in the role of Reese_Witherspoon's psychotic boyfriend.
It was with the release of Paul_Thomas_Anderson's Boogie_Nights in 1997 that Wahlberg finally received across-the-board respect for his commanding yet unassuming performance as busboy-turned-porn-star Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler. The film was nominated for three Oscars and a slew of other awards by associations ranging from the British Academy to the New York Film Critics Circle to MTV. The positive attention landed Wahlberg on a wide range of magazine covers and gave him greater Hollywood pulling power.
He had, as they say, arrived. Wahlberg's follow-up to Boogie_Nights was 1998's The_Big_Hit, an action comedy that, particularly in the wake of Boogie_Night's acclaim, proved to be a disappointment. This disappointment was hardly lessened by the relative critical and commercial shortcomings of Wahlberg's next film, The_Corruptor (1999).
An action flick that co-starred Chow Yun-Fat, The_Corruptor showcased Wahlberg's familiar macho side and indicated that success in Hollywood is a strange and unpredictable thing. Though he gained positive notice for his role in David_O._Russell' s unconventional war film Three_Kings the same year, the film was only a moderate success, paving the way for an even more dramatic turn in the downbeat true story of the ill-fated Andrea Gail, The_Perfect_Storm, in 2000.
The following year found Wahlberg filling some big shoes -- and receiving some hefty criticism as a result -- with his lead role in Tim_Burton's much-anticipated remake of Planet of the Apes. Taking over the role that Charlton_Heston made famous, Wahlberg found himself pursued onscreen by sinister simians, as well as offscreen by critics who decried the lack of depth that the actor brought to the role.
Late that summer, Wahlberg came back down to Earth -- specifically to the everyday-Joe-rises-to-fame territory of Boogie_Nights -- with Rock_Star, the story of a tribute-band singer who gets a chance to sing for the band he idolizes. Though his noble attempt to fill the considerable shoes of Hollywood legend Cary_Grant in the 2002 Charade remake The_Truth_About_Charlie would be only slightly exceeded by his assumption of the role originally played by Michael_Caine in the following year's remake of The_Italian_Job, Wahlberg would subsequently prove that there's nothing like the fresh breeze of an original script in director David_O._Russell's existential 2004 comedy I_Heart_Huckabees.
Of course, Wahlberg was never one to let a crowd down, and after riling audiences alongside Tyrese_Gibson and André_Benjamin in the Detroit-based revenge flick Four_Brothers, the athletic actor would take to the gridiron to tell the inspirational story of one football fan whose dreams of playing in the NFL actually came true in the 2006 sports drama Invincible. Also released in the fall of 2006, The_Departed allowed Wahlberg to act opposite such heavy hitters as Jack_Nicholson, Matt_Damon, Alec_Baldwin, and his old Basketball_Diaries co-star Leonardo_Di_Caprio under the direction of Martin_Scorsese. Not only did Wahlberg hold his own against the cast of critics' darlings, he landed the film's only acting Academy Award nod. In 2007, Wahlberg starred in the suspense actioner The_Shooter, as well as in director Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones.
Wahlberg starred as the leader of a ragtag group trying to survive amidst murderous plant life in M. Night Shyamalan's so-bad-it's-good The Happening (2008), and played the titular role of Max Payne, which was adapted from a video game of the same name. In 2010 the actor starred in the inspirational docudrama chronicling the life of brothers Micky and Dicky Ecklund as they take on the world of boxing.
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