The role Mark Wahlberg lied through his teeth to get: “Which was pretty cool”
Although he doesn’t have a reputation as a character actor (far from it, in fact), Mark Wahlberg has played a variety of roles across his career. An adult film star in Boogie Nights, an undercover cop in The Departed, a grieving father in The Lovely Bones, and a stranded astronaut in the Planet of the Apes remake, Wahlberg has done it all. Sometimes, he even tries to hide his Boston accent with, let’s say ‘mixed’ results.
Another intriguing entry in the star’s back catalogue is Ericson Core’s 2006 film Invincible. Based on the story of the Philadelphia Eagles NFL team between 1976 and 1978, the film casts Wahlberg as Vince Papale, an ordinary man who unexpectedly joins the franchise as a wide receiver. His relationship with Eagles coach Dick Vermeil (Greg Kinnear) serves as the emotional anchor to the plot as the team embark on a journey to raise the spirits of their embattled city.
Wahlberg gives a decent performance as the inspirational everyman in Invincible and is equally as convincing as a superstar football player. His real-life experience with the sport made him the perfect fit for the character – at least, that’s what he told the director during his audition.
“I lied. I said I played college football,” Wahlberg confessed to Radio Free while promoting the movie. “Obviously I had never gone to college, I never played high school football. But I played football in the neighbourhood. I played every sport, but we didn’t play with equipment. The first time I ever put on equipment was in an NFL uniform, which was pretty cool.”
At least he was actually a fan of football, although not a big enough one to have heard of Papale. “I’m a big football buff, [but] I didn’t know the Vince Papale story until I was sent the script and I saw a 90-second piece that a friend of his [put together for] NFL films,” he continued. “I was blown away. It’s an amazing story.”
The actor isn’t afraid to put the effort in to get a role – he once went on an insane diet for the movie Father Stu – but getting into college and then becoming a football star in his mid-30s might have been a stretch. To be fair to him, his ill-spent youth was very well-known at the time, so Core and the rest of the team should have known that he didn’t even go to university, let alone play sports there.
American football is a very physical sport, so Wahlberg obviously opted for a stunt double for the movie, right? Well, not exactly. That was me,” he revealed of a scene where his character gets tackled on the sideline of the pitch. “But that particular hit actually fixed my bad back. It did. I was hurting from shooting and taking a lot of hits. The guy just cleaned me – you know, he cleaned my closet. It was like everything kind of popped back into place. They were so worried they ran in, and everybody was dead silent.” Wahlberg is a fan of stunt sequences, so it’s not that surprising that he wanted to do this himself.
He might not have gotten the part in an honest way, but Wahlberg playing Papale worked out for the best. It’s not one of his more famous roles, but it’s certainly a lot better than anything he’s done in the Transformers series. Although that isn’t that hard.
