Mark Wahlberg
“I’m always optimistic. I’m hoping for the best,” says Wahlberg, who was photographed Nov. 7 at The Library Bar at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. “There’s so much celebrating failure, it’s pretty sickening, you know?”
“I’m always optimistic. I’m hoping for the best,” says Wahlberg, who was photographed Nov. 7 at The Library Bar at the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. “There’s so much celebrating failure, it’s pretty sickening, you know?”
At 42, he’s reached the pinnacle of the entertainment world, with Oscar nominations for The Departed and The Fighter, blockbusters such as Ted and Planet of the Apes, and a reputation as one of the few producers who can get things made. “He has an incredible perspective on the business,” says Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley. “I adore him.”
His energy is boundless, his ambition insatiable. He may just be the hardest-working man in show business — a man who lives for a mission that is just now taking shape: to be a movie star-mogul. “I want to build a great body of work; I want to build a great business,” he says. “My goal is to finance my own projects, own my material, maybe even have a studio.”
“I didn’t have the luxury of traveling,” says Wahlberg (left), who grew up on the streets of Boston with his older brother, Donnie, who would go on to success in New Kids on the Block.
“There were people that were role models around. I just wasn’t looking to them for inspiration or advice,” says Wahlberg (left) with his siblings (from left) Robert, Tracy, Donnie and Jim.
Mark (left), backstage after a 1991 NKOTB concert with Donnie, left the group before it broke big.
The actor-producer found early, traffic-stopping success as a Calvin Klein underwear model.
Wahlberg’s role as porn star Dirk Diggler in 1997’s Boogie Nights was a turning point. “Boogie Nights was a moment for me where I had to say, ‘You know what? I can’t keep worrying about what the guys in the neighborhood are going to think. I’m an actor. I gotta go for it.’ ”
With director Michael Bay (left) on the set of Transformers: Age of Extinction, for which Wahlberg will earn his biggest payday yet.
When Universal pulled out of Lone Survivor, Wahlberg recruited his former assistant, Randall Emmett of Emmett/Furla Films, to secure the financing.