|
HOLLYWOOD -- Surely, it was a case of first-timer
nerves. Mark Wahlberg was overjoyed to learn he’d been
nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for his work in
Martin Scorsese's The Departed. Working with the
director, he said early on nomination day, “was just a
blessing in itself, and then to have all this happen on
top of it, you just kind of pinch yourself.”
But did
he call Scorsese to share his moment in the sun? Well,
yes, eventually.
Two days
later, the novice nominee finally connected with his
director by phone.
“I was
doing a photo shoot and I had tried to call him and then
he called me back,” Wahlberg said. “And I said, ‘Marty,
I guess I should have worked with you before. I work
with you and then, bang, they nominate me for an Oscar
and all this crazy stuff happens.’”
''He
goes, ‘Well, you'd think that a kid who got nominated
for an Oscar would (expletive) call me the day after.’
He's just such a funny guy.”
Wahlberg
unwittingly trained for his role as Bryce Dignam, an
abrasive sergeant in Boston's police department, for
most of his youth. In the 1980s, he was a teenage punk
who was getting arrested repeatedly in the city's
Dorchester neighborhood. Turns out he stored away those
experiences with his hometown’s finest to create his
volatile portrayal of a character who winds up as the
ultimate agent of justice.
Also
inspiring, according to Wahlberg, 35, was the experience
of working with a cast that included Jack Nicholson,
fellow Bostonian Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec
Baldwin and Martin Sheen.
You
really nailed the
Boston accent.
I
actually spent eight or nine years trying to lose it. Me
and Matt were joking about it constantly, because we're
both trying to get away from doing the Boston thing, and
the best roles that we've played have been
Boston
guys.
I did a
combination of my voice, a little bit of my mom in
there, especially the bad words, and my dad.
Most of
your roles are leads now. With a smaller role, did you
have to make an impression more quickly or vividly?
Not at
all. ... I was really just trying to make Marty happy.
Whatever Marty wanted me to do and whatever part I was
to play in his vision was really my sole intention.
What did
he want you to do?
He
continued to encourage me to do more. He knew that being
from that world that I really had slang that they
probably hadn't heard, and he said, basically, look at
the script, don't lose any plot points and, other than
that, say whatever you want. Especially in the scenes
like with Leo, when I was interrogating him, and the
scenes with Alec and those guys, he encouraged me to
kind of push the envelope.
Do you
mean improvising?
Yeah, he
encouraged me to improvise in every scene that I was in.
And I think it was only one line that I did that wasn't
scripted that didn't make it into the movie. ... I've
had tons of experience with the Boston police and I know
who those guys are. ... You know,
Boston
is a small town, and Dorchester is a small neighborhood.
I grew up with the cops, I knew what shift they were on,
when their days off were. It's a very close-knit
community. So to be able to tap back into that and to
use all that real-life experience finally for some good
was pretty awesome.
The
other actors must have been improvising with you then.
Yeah.
But like in the scene with Leo, he didn't get to say all
that much, which I really enjoyed, because it was eating
him alive. You could just see the wheels turning. He
wanted to get up and whack me.
The
story is intense, the characters are all intense. How
was the atmosphere on the set?
Intense.
Yeah. We never all worked together, so it wasn't like we
could all sit around and get Jack to tell his stories.
... It was the most serious and professional set I have
ever been on. And I was in character the whole time.
Marty would come out at like
8 o'clock in the morning and I'd be yelling and screaming at
somebody. And he'd be like, “Well, you really like to
get into this thing.”
I've got
a lot of great things happening in my life, and to get
in that mind-set, it takes some working yourself up. I
didn't want to kind of go in and out of it and not be as
sharp as he wanted me to be.
How
would you describe your character?
He
didn't give a ... about anybody or anything. He didn't
care if you liked him or not. He was a no-nonsense guy,
but he was a guy who did his job. And he's got some
morals. They're not morally correct in everybody else's
eyes, but certainly in his eyes and the world that he
lives in, the rules are different. |
