The 1990s filmmaker Mark Wahlberg single-handedly liberated from director’s jail: “Over my dead body”
Mark Wahlberg is nothing if not loyal.
There’s never been a Hollywood star quite like Wahlberg, who has somehow found himself within the inner circle of celebrity, sports media, franchise filmmaking, and prestige cinema, while constantly feeling like both an underdog and an outsider. He has never been one to act modestly when talking about his own success, but he’s also been honest about which of his performances didn’t connect.
Wahlberg’s brilliant performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights announced him as a star, but he had to prove that he could do more than just play a handsome adult star in the next few years, so he joined Ice Cube and George Clooney in the dark comedy war film Three Kings, which had a notoriously difficult production due to its temperamental filmmaker, David O Russell.
The director developed a reputation for screaming and insulting members of the cast and crew, and he got into a fight with Clooney after the A-lister felt he was being disrespectful towards extras, which made the actor swear off ever working with him again, but Wahlberg returned to star in his 2004 satire I Heart Huckabees, in which he gave one of the cheekiest, funniest performances of the decade.
The film got O Russell into more trouble when audio was leaked of him shouting at Lily Tomlin on set, and Wahlberg said that he had to advocate for the director when they agreed to work together again on The Fighter.
“Oh, 100%, every single person on the movie said, ‘Absolutely not, over my dead body’,” he recalled, “I just figured out a way to get it done because I certainly knew how talented he was, a lot of people knew how talented he was, but a lot of people didn’t want to deal with it. The best time to get somebody is when they really need it.”
Wahlberg had more power with The Fighter, serving as a producer on the film, and gave himself the lead role of the underdog boxer Micky Ward. The film was an unquestionable hit that earned a nomination for ‘Best Picture’, got O Russell his first nomination for ‘Best Director’, and won the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ and ‘Best Supporting Actress’ prizes for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo, respectively. Although Wahlberg was snubbed in the ‘Best Actor’ race, his role as a producer on the film meant that he got to share in the ‘Best Picture’ nomination.
Wahlberg’s belief in O Russell led the director to have a very successful run at the Oscars with his next two projects, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, which became the first two films to be nominated in every acting category since Reds in 1981. However, the director’s behaviour continued to get him in trouble, as he reportedly shouted at Amy Adams while making American Hustle and feuded with Jennifer Lawrence on Joy. His most recent film, Amsterdam, was a giant bomb.
Surprisingly, Wahlberg hasn’t worked with O Russell again since The Fighter, and has seemingly moved away from prestige fare to dominate action, family, and comedy films on streaming. O Russell has a new film, Madden, coming out later this year with Nicolas Cage and Christian Bale that has already begun to attract some controversy, so he might need Wahlberg to vouch for him once more.
