Mark Wahlberg Biography

Mark Wahlberg was a pop singer and an underwear model before becoming an enduring Hollywood star in movies from Boogie Nights to Patriots Day.

Mark Wahlberg grew up in the rough Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, the youngest of nine kids. He was briefly part of the original New Kids On The Block, the band of Boston city kids whose factory-made pop dance tunes overwhelmed the charts in the 1980s. (His brother Donnie Wahlberg was a founding member of the group.)

Mark Wahlberg left the group in its first year and formed Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch. The group made him a pop idol in his own right, famous for his agreeable dance tunes and his habit of wearing his pants to expose the top of his underwear. (His penchant for dropping his trousers got him a job as a Calvin Klein underwear model).

He turned to acting in TV’s The Substitute (1993), and earned nods from critics for his portrayal of porn star Dirk Diggler in 1997’s Boogie Nights (co-starring Don Cheadle). Late in the decade he starred with chum George Clooney in two more hits, Three Kings (1999) and The Perfect Storm (2000, also with Diane Lane).

Mark Wahlberg then carved out a career as a leading player of the Everyman variety, often as a struggling regular guy turned action hero. His films include the re-make of The Italian Job (with Mos Def); Rock Star (2001, with Jennifer Aniston); as 30-year-old NFL rookie Vince Papale in the 2006 film Invincible; Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed (2006, with Wahlberg as a harsh Boston detective); M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Happening (2008, with Zooey Deschanel); Max Payne (2008, with Ludacris); and The Other Guys (2010, with Will Ferrell); the comedies Ted (2012) and Ted 2 (2015), with Wahlberg playing opposite a foul-mouthed stuffed bear; and Patriots Day (2016), a dramatic feature about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

Wahlberg has also worked as a producer and idea man. Most notably, he executive produced the HBO series Entourage (2004-11), a series loosely based on Wahlberg’s own early experiences in the movie business. In 2017, Forbes magazine named Wahlberg the highest-paid male actor in Hollywood, estimating that he’d earned $68 million in the previous year.