I do the things that I gravitate towards.

Mostly I really get inspired by true stories.

But, if it's something that I would want to see myself,

or I think audiences want to see me in,

but I don't limit it to that.

I kind of wanna try different things.

The great thing is, I have a lot of real life experience

and I get to draw on those thing.

And I think that's invaluable

when playing these parts.

Because people and audiences can really detect authenticity.

So, yeah, I'm just doin' what I'm feelin'

is like, the thing to do at the time.

[mellow jazzy music]

I'm Mark Wahlberg,

and this is the timeline of my career.

- Laertes, Haywood.

- Laertes is a fool.

He ain't never stopped to think about

what type of person Hamlet was.

All he does is do what the king tells him to do.

When he fights Hamlet,

all they do is end up killing each other.

That's his problem.

He don't stop and think before he acts.

I want somebody else, Bill.

[patriotic music]

- "Renaissance Man" I could talk about all day.

It's the reason why I'm here today.

Penny is the reason why I'm here today.

I have so much appreciation and gratitude

and love for her, and miss her dearly.

I had started out in music.

I was being offered a couple of roles

because of my success in music

and my stint in underwear modeling.

I had gotten offered "Sister Act 2"

to be a rapper.

I got offered a bad in a rollerblade movie

that I was like, no, I can't do this.

Don't want to do it.

Don't want to do movies at all.

Thought I was gonna be Eminem

and have a crazy hip hop career.

And then I got a call saying,

"Would you like to meet Penny Marshall?"

And I said, "You mean Laverne?"

And they were like, "Yes."

And I said, "Oh, yes."

I was in New York at the time.

So I said, "I'll go to that meeting."

They said, "Oh, Danny DeVito's gonna be there too."

I said, "Oh my God, this is great."

People that I grew up watching.

I went into the meeting

and I was just so excited to meet her and Danny.

And then we started talking about

life and where I came from

and me being from Boston and her being from the Bronx.

We just hit it off.

And then she goes,

"So how come you don't wanna be in movies?"

I said, "No, I'm not an actor."

She goes, "Oh you are an actor.

"You're acting right now."

And she goes, "Take these pages, go outside

"and come back and let's read a scene."

So I literally auditioned, I don't know,

probly three or four roles that day.

It was just a lot of fun.

And it was just very different form

anybody else that I had met in music.

They were interested in me the person

and thought that maybe that I could possibly

bring something to the equation.

So we then planned on if I made it to the next level,

flying myself out to LA to go on a screen test.

I remember getting the call.

I was in New Jersey at my then manager's house.

And she called me and told me

that I had gotten the part.

And flew back out to LA,

rehearsed with her.

Went to South Carolina.

Shot, and then were in LA.

And I literally spent every single day on the set.

I wanted to know what everybody was doing and why.

Both in front of and behind the camera.

So I really kind of went to school on it.

It was like Penny Marshall school of acting.

She would do the craziest things like

when I was shooting a closeup,

she would be doing the off camera

instead of the other actor,

but instead of playing the other actor's role,

she would basically be doing

what she wanted me to be doing at the time.

She'd be like, "Marky, like this."

And I was very confused.

But after that,

I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else.

And, you know, we lost Penny last year.

And it was very, very sad.

And I remember her sister calling me.

And I was like, "Hey, what's going on?"

She was like, "You gotta come get your stuff."

I'm like, "What stuff?"

And she's like,

"Penny left you all this sports memorabilia.

"All this Patriots stuff and Red Sox stuff

"and golf stuff 'cause she knew how much you loved them."

I would definitely, definitely not be here

if it weren't for Penny.

[patriotic music]

- Go ahead, take another sip

so I can blow your fuckin' head all over the counter.

Go ahead, Pedro, go ahead.

- That movie was directed by Scott Kalvert

who directed all of my early music videos.

When we made the video for "Good Vibrations"

he goes, "You're gonna be an actor."

I said, "No I'm not."

He goes, "You are,

"and I've only told that to two other people."

He told that to Will Smith and to Tupac

when he directed them in their music videos.

And then "Basketball Diaries" was happening.

Avy Kaufman was the casting director.

I went for my first audition.

Went for my second audition.

Went for my third audition.

The audition became like a thing

where people would come and watch.

I remember Chris Blackwell, who was the owner

of Island Records and Island Films,

he discovered Bob Marley,

he came to watch the audition.

I mean people were just coming to watch

and I was unfortunately being a little too aggressive

with the other actors,

but that was kind of how I done my thing at the time.

I remember one actor, I don't wanna say his name,

but he was like, "Man if I don't get this part

"I'm gonna be so [beep] pissed.

"You keep kicking my [beep] ass."

And I'm like, "I hope you get the part.

"I don't know if I'm gonna get the part."

I auditioned for seven times

and then realized that certain people were like,

"No, Mark can't be in this movie."

And I was like,

"Well, I don't know about certain people either."

But then finally they were able to kind of

get everybody in a room.

I ended up, it was an accident,

I showed up probably about six hours late.

We were supposed to audition, I think it was on a Monday

and it was a Thursday so we were like,

"What are we gonna do all weekend?"

I was like, "I don't know, let's go to Puerto Rico."

I had never been to Puerto Rico.

So we flew to Puerto Rico

and then there was a snow storm

so we got stuck in Puerto Rico.

Missed the flight.

Showed up at like 10 o'clock at night.

I walked in, everybody was not happy.

But I was like, "Let's do this [beep]."

And we started reading.

And then I looked at Leo,

and was like, damn, this dude is pretty good.

I had only played basketball with him once.

So that was the only kind of interaction that we had.

That was not pleasant for either one of us.

And then he looked at me and it was like,

I don't know, hour later we were out at the club

tearin' it up.

We hit it off after that.

- The cops are comin' come on.

- So that's what this whole thing's about, Steve.

Your inadequacies, your fears.

- You just wait a minute.

- Now listen to me.

See, I'm hip to your problems.

All of 'em.

I know you abandoned Nicole when she needed you most.

'Cause I licked her sweet tears.

I know about things comin' apart at work.

Maybe you fuckin' lost it in that department.

I also know you ain't keepin' up, so to speak,

your end of the bargain with the missus.

- And then going into "Fear,"

which Leo actually was kind enough

to recommend me to Jimmy Foley.

And Jimmy Foley was like, "Who's Mark Wahlberg?"

He was like, "You know the guy Marky Mark?"

He was like, "What, are you out of your mind?"

Said, "You're not puttin' Marky Mark in this movie."

He was like, "Dude, I'm tellin' you, just see him."

So I met with Foley.

We hit it off.

We hung out for eight hours at a bar in New York.

By the time I got home he called me.

He goes, "You know I can't give you this part, right?"

I was like, "It's all good.

"You do whatever you want.

"It's your movie."

And then he goes, "Well, I'd like to audition you

"for one of the guys in the gang."

And it was like,

but the parts were so small they didn't have any lines.

He was like, "Just read the lead,

"And then I'll see if I can give you

"one of the other parts."

And then I did the audition and he was like,

"I'm gonna tell the studio if they don't hire you

"to be the lead in this movie,

"then I'm not doing the movie."

I said, "Okay, you don't have to do that,

"but if you feel that strongly about it..."

'Cause they hadn't seen "Renaissance Man"

or "Basketball Diaries."

And he fought for me to be the lead in that movie.

- When I close my eyes, I see this thing.

It's like this big sign

and the name is in like bright blue neon lights

with like purple outline.

And this name is just so bright and so sharp,

that the sign, it just blows up

because the name is just so powerful.

[upbeat music]

[fireworks exploding]

- "Boogie Nights" was one of those things where

the script came my way,

I was really kind of turned off by the subject matter.

I was not interested in doing a movie about pornography.

And I was really trying to just build my career

one role at a time.

I felt like, any time there was an opportunity

to do something that seemed to be sexual

or exploiting me physically,

it was like, I don't know.

So I read 30 pages of the script and I put it down.

I was like, "This could be fantastic,

"or this could be terrible."

I mean, "Showgirls" had just come out

and we really didn't know what to make of it.

And then I met with PTA and I was like,

"Oh God, this could be great."

He was supposed to be offering me the part,

but he said he just wanted to do one more meeting

where John C Reilly and Philip Seymour Hoffman

and Thomas Jane were also there,