Somewhere between bulking up with The Rock and running away from giant (extinct) Hasbro toys, Mark Wahlberg lost 60 pounds. Did you notice? He wanted you to notice.
In a new interview with USA Today, Mark makes sure you do. It's all for his upcoming role in the remake of The Gambler, where Mark plays a gaunt teacher-on-the-edge. His life nearly spirals out of his control due to his – you guessed it – gambling addiction, but Brie Larson saves him from the brink… allegedly. Jessica Lange stars, too. Still, Mark says the weight loss was nothing compared to the acting:
“Forget losing the weight. Being believable as a teacher was one of my greatest challenges and most rewarding. It meant being able to have the comfort to really understand and say those words."
Let’s not forget Mark graduated high school a year ago, at 42. According to him, academia posed even more of a stretch. Sure. But is this enough for Oscar?
It’s a formula that worked for him before: real-life juvenile delinquent plays A-list detective? Sounds like his Oscar-nominated role in The Departed. Of course, his scrappy against-all-odds true life background left him empty handed for The Fighter, but he did get a nod as a producer. Lone Survivor tried but the Academy ignored it. Yet, what Mark’s really showing here is his HUNGER.
But this year’s best actor category is already too packed. There’s probably no room left for Mark. Deadline’s Pete Hammond wrote two weeks ago about how there should be 10 best actor nominees because of how dense the field is. That’s a ridiculous idea; to be among the five is what’s available. And Mark is trying.
Let’s see – leaving out the wildcards, like Timothy Spall, David Oyelowo, Chadwick Boseman, Joaquin Phoenix, and Ben Affleck…
Jake Gyllenhaal broke his hand and lost 20 – 30 pounds for Nightcrawler.
Benedict Cumberbatch trimmed down to play a strung out codebreaker in The Imitation Game.
Eddie Redmayne spent six months learning how to contort his body to imitate Stephen Hawking’s muscular decline in The Theory of Everything.
Michael Keaton’s channeling his real-life comeback in Birdman.
Steve Carell is as unrecognizable as it gets in Foxcatcher, and Bradley Cooper’s giant thunder thighs have dominated all (okay, most) American Sniper coverage thus far. Plus, he’s nearly three for three.
So…. with a Dec. 19 release date and no trailer in sight, will you remember to include Marky Mark? Well, in this “weighting game”, don’t overlook it: Mark can drop the pounds, too.
Hey, it worked for Matthew McConaughey.
Attached: Photos of a trim Mark in The Gambler.
