Mark Wahlberg’s four favourite actors: “He’s a guy I can identify with”
Mark Wahlberg is an interesting one. If you asked me to name some of his films, I could reel off several that rank among the worst pieces of dross I’ve ever seen.
Yet, he does have some bangers to his name. Though it feels like he’s been mired in the muck of mediocrity for some time now, his early-to-mid career has more gems than you might expect. Are they good enough to balance out the likes of Flight Risk or those Transformers movies? Almost certainly not.
His improbable career has brought him into contact with some of the finest actors of his generation. He jockeyed for roles with Leonardo DiCaprio when the two were both starting out, leading to some serious friction between the two. Christian Bale, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Edward Norton; they’re all on his Christmas card list.
When it comes to Bostonians’ all-time favourites, however, he tends to skew a bit more classical. As part of her book, You Gotta See This: More Than 100 of Hollywood’s Best Reveal and Discuss Their Favorite Films, author Cindy Pearlman sat down with Wahlberg to talk about who he likes to see on the big screen. Despite wanging on about Taxi Driver for ages, he eventually settled on four performers who had nothing to do with Scorsese’s classic.
“Al Pacino in anything really,” he said. “I mean, you name it. I feel the same way about John Garfield and Clint Eastwood… More than anything, I love everything Jimmy Cagney ever did… He’s like my dad. You know, he’s a guy that I can identify with because he’s a standup guy. He wants to do right. And finally, I like Cagney because of his looks. I don’t identify with guys who look better than the girls starring next to them in a movie. Jimmy never had that problem.”
James ‘Jimmy’ Cagney is perhaps best known for his work in the gangster genre. In 1931, he played Tom Powers in The Public Enemy, widely considered to be the first ‘proper’ exploration of mobsters on film. The movie went on to inspire pretty much every gangster movie that followed, most notably The Godfather. Cagney returned to this well a number of times throughout his career with the likes of Angels with Dirty Faces and White Heat. No doubt he was a major inspiration for Wahlberg when he was starring in The Departed.
Both Cagney and Garfield died before Wahlberg’s film career even began. In the case of Garfield, he passed away from a heart attack 19 years before his admirer was even born. As for his favourites that are still going – Pacino and Eastwood – he’s never crossed paths with them professionally.
Hilariously, though, his brothers have. Donnie Wahlberg appeared alongside Pacino in the film Righteous Kill, while Robert Wahlberg had a minor part in the Eastwood-directed Mystic River. That must have been an interesting Christmas dinner.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out why Wahlberg likes the actors he likes. All four are known for playing tough guys, the exact sort of macho bros that the younger star can’t get enough of in his own career. It really is as simple as that.
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