KEY POINTS:
Nothing quite spells out Hollywood acceptance like an Oscar nomination. Especially when you are singled out for such an honour over the heads of Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, your illustrious co-stars in this year's Best Picture winner, The Departed.
Not bad for a former convict who once wrote a book with a dedication to his penis.
Befitting his new-found respectability, Mark Wahlberg would prefer to leave his private parts - and anything other topics verging on vulgarity - out of the conversation. Or so his earnest handlers would imagine, hence the haughty email I receive prior to my meeting with Wahlberg, suggesting that any questions "bordering on gossip" will result in the immediate termination of my interview.
Fortunately, Wahlberg makes it clear that no subject is taboo when we meet the next day at a Beverly Hills hotel suite just down the road from his own $5 million luxury compound.
"I've made a lot of mistakes in my past and maybe one day people will forgive me," he says.
It is with an air of detachment that he revisits his ill-spent youth - with millions of television viewers - through his award-winning series, Entourage, created around the antics of his own real-life posse, and which he now executive-produces.
And on the heels of his Best Supporting Actor nod, he has re-teamed with The Departed director Martin Scorsese to develop a television drama series, Boardwalk Empire, based around the birth of, and Mafia involvement in, Atlantic City.
The duo are also discussing a sequel to The Departed, despite the fact Wahlberg is virtually the only actor left standing at the film's bloody finale.
At this point, it must be noted that there are few people luckier than Wahlberg, 35, a man who has been granted not just one lucky break but four.
A former best-selling teen pop idol, a career he later transformed into top underwear model, Wahlberg was not content with his third re-incarnation as movie star, rapidly parlaying that success into television and film production.
He is executive-producing the boxing drama The Fighter and crime thriller Sharky's Machine. Such power allows him the financial freedom to pick and choose his roles.
So, why has all this success come Wahlberg's way? With all due respect, he's not exceptionally handsome, or particularly tall - 5ft 7in (1.7m) to be exact - and not even especially charismatic. Neither can his current run of good luck be attributed to some sort of karmic payback, after he robbed a man of his eye while high on angel dust 19 years ago.
Today, he regrets the wild spree that saw him and friends looting a liquor store, swinging a metal hook at a Vietnamese refugee and taking out the man's eye.
"When I was 13, 14, 15, I had a pretty serious cocaine problem," confesses Wahlberg, who served 45 days of a two-year sentence at an adult prison - a crucial turning-point in his life.
"I was sniffing and freebasing, but I never tried heroin - never saw it, thank God," says the actor, whose epiphany came as a 16-year-old behind bars. "God knew that I was capable of doing some good and working to show people there's something better than being the toughest kid in the neighbourhood."
It was 15 years ago that ex-con and former petty thug Marky Mark - his former rap star persona - dropped his pants during a live concert. From teen rapper he became a Calvin Klein model, and his image was plastered around the world and on the biggest billboard in New York's Times Square.
Juvenile delinquent, hit rapper, international model, video director, Hollywood star, fearsome producer ... Wahlberg is in no doubt who to thank for such bounty.
"I thank the Lord for all the blessings he's brought upon me," he announces. "I readily acknowledge him as my saviour. I believe that there is a God, and that you will be judged for your actions, which presents problems for someone like me who has been a sinner in the past. I just hope God is a movie fan."
Wahlberg's latest role is a disgruntled former Marine scout sniper in classic revenge movie Shooter. But it comes as a surprise to learn that Wahlberg, no stranger to guns during his youth, is something of a pacifist now.
"It would be a perfect world if we could take them all away but unfortunately that's not going to happen, so we want to try to put them in the hands of the people that will do the right thing with them and protect the innocent - and the people that can't protect themselves," says the actor, who refuses to keep a gun at home lest it fall into the hands of his children. He has a daughter, Ella Rae, 3, and son, Michael, 1, with his Revlon model girlfriend Rhea Durham.
With his Beverly Hills mansion and membership of the best private country clubs, Wahlberg enjoys a lifestyle light years removed from the cramped Boston apartment where he was born, the youngest of nine children to working-class Catholic parents. His parents divorced when he was 11 years old, and his mother Alma today blames that for his subsequent slide into delinquency, claiming she was too busy working and feeling sorry for herself to notice.
Left to his own devices, Wahlberg traded the classroom for the street corner. "Every day was wake up, go out, hustle, make money, steal, sell drugs, rob people, do drugs - by normal standards I should have been locked away and they should have thrown away the key," he recalls, referring to the 1988 assault.
"It's not something I'm proud of, but it changed my life.
"You might want to take your brain out of your head and wash it and scrub it and make it clean, but you can't, and I think everything happens for a reason."
Upon release, the experience shocked him into temporarily taking a job as a truck driver, until the question of what to do next was resolved by his older brother, Donnie, who had risen to become leader of the number-one boy band in the world, New Kids on the Block.
Composing songs for his troubled kid brother, Donnie laid the groundwork for Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch - Wahlberg's Music for the People becoming 1991's best-selling album.
"They were exciting times, and I hope I was able to address some issues with my music," says Wahlberg, who abruptly quit his rap career after re-inventing himself as an actor, making his film debut 13 years ago in Renaissance Man.
"I still enjoy music, but today I think my biggest success - the thing I am most proud of - is that I took it upon myself to change my life. Initially, I wasn't really interested in the whole process of acting, especially when I was so committed to my music. It was Danny DeVito who changed my life around. We worked together in Renaissance Man, which is where I developed my passion.
"I love that I've been given such great opportunities to prove myself as an actor. I've learnt so much through the experience. It's like going to school. I try to pay attention and learn as much as possible," says the actor who went on to receive much critical acclaim for his roles in Boogie Nights, The Basketball Diaries, Three Kings and Invincible.
Wahlberg admits he's come a long way. "I look back and laugh at the old me," he says. "I was so arrogant, believing I was the toughest guy on the street. Now I realise none of that stuff matters."
LOWDOWN
Who: Mark Wahlberg, crim turned rapper turned model turned actor.
Born: : June 5, 1971, Boston, US.
Key roles: : The Basketball Diaries (1995), Boogie Nights(1997), Three Kings (1997), The Italian Job, (2003), Invincible (2006), The Departed(2006).
Latest role: : Playing a framed sniper in The Shooter, opening on April 19.
- INDEPENDENT
