Mark Wahlberg is at his most persuasive when toughness leaves room for uncertainty or humour. We rate the open ambition of Boogie Nights above his more routine action work; a strong director and good company usually help.
Fi1m perspective
Mark Wahlberg's Eddie Adams wants to succeed in Boogie Nights (1997), and the wanting is easy to understand. Wahlberg makes the young man's ambition seem uncomplicated, even as Eddie takes the name Dirk Diggler. Paul Thomas Anderson gives him the centre of a crowded film, and Wahlberg makes it easy to stay interested in him. We were moved by Eddie's eagerness, because Wahlberg plays it without embarrassment or a request that we feel superior to him.
Eddie also has good company. Burt Reynolds gives filmmaker Jack Horner's ambitions serious attention, while Julianne Moore brings emotional weight to Amber Waves without asking for sympathy. Wahlberg's directness belongs beside those performances: each actor lets us care about someone who might have been an easy joke. The rise-and-fall story grows familiar, but he remains an appealing reason to follow it. Anderson gets something valuable from him here, and later variations on the capable tough man do not always make such good use of it.
The leading roles that followed spread across drama, action and comedy, with the directors often providing the more useful guide. David O. Russell directed him in the ensemble satire Three Kings (1999) and as boxer Micky Ward in The Fighter (2010). Martin Scorsese cast him as Staff Sergeant Sean Dignam in The Departed (2006). His voice can shift from a mumble to a higher, lighter register, a useful way of allowing uncertainty into an otherwise forceful manner. That is the Wahlberg we prefer: someone whose toughness can accommodate humour or vulnerability.
Ted (2012) took him into broad comedy, while Michael Bay's Pain & Gain (2013) cast him as the morally compromised Daniel Lugo. The willingness to try those parts matters, though a different genre does not always produce a different performance. Too many variations on the same straightforward tough man can become routine, and the later Transformers films offer less that is distinctive than the earlier dramas. Start with Boogie Nights if the action roles have made him seem predictable. We would like his next director to ask for more of that openness.
Biography
Mark Wahlberg is an American actor. Born on 5 June 1971 in Boston, Massachusetts, he first gained attention as the frontman of the hip hop group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, releasing albums in the early 1990s.
Wahlberg made his screen debut in Renaissance Man (1994) and starred in Fear (1996). He received critical praise for his performance as Eddie Adams / Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights (1997).
He has appeared in films including The Italian Job (2003), The Departed (2006), The Fighter (2010), Ted (2012) and its sequel, and entries in the Transformers series. Wahlberg has received Academy Award nominations for acting and producing.
