Having no intentions of working in Hollywood in the early days of his unusual hip-hop career, Mark Wahlberg has come a long way. Not only has he worked with the cream of the crop, but he has also found some great friendships along the way.

Played a bad influence as a drug addict in one and a cop in another, Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio developed a strange friendship that didn’t quite work out in the beginning.

Mark Wahlberg
We’re almost two decades down since they last worked together in Scorsese’s The Departed where Wahlberg played the role of a cop that got him an Oscar nod for best supporting role.

But, that’s not exactly how his story began. Early projects in his career scared people to the point that he had to move away from certain roles that came off as dark and menacing.

Mark Wahlberg Wanted To Shake Off His Mickey Image

Scott Kalvert’s 1995 crime drama The Basketball Diaries was an original story by writer and novelist Jim Caroll played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Wahlberg’s Mickey who is a heroin addict, always on edge, and gets into fights.

The film, though, tanked incredibly hard at the box office earning only $2.4m, and is considered to be one of the worst of starts for an actor who is looking to make it big.

The Basketball Diaries (1995)
According to the actor, he was quite content with his hip-hop stints and had already made a stage name – Marky Mark, which DiCaprio hated before they started working on the film.

In an interview, Mark Wahlberg admitted –
“People were afraid of me after roles in Fear and The Basketball Diaries.”

Not to mention, he also had a criminal record before he made his way to earning fame, which instilled all the more fear in the audience.

Mark Wahlberg Has Always Been A Tough Actor

Working with heavyweights like Denzel Washington in The Preacher’s Wife, De Niro and Robin Williams in Awakenings, and Tom Hank’s Big, Penny Marshall helped Mark Wahlberg launch his acting career in a minor role alongside Danny DeVito in Renaissance Man just a year prior to The Basketball Diaries.

Mark Wahlberg

His father had been quite passionate about films and it wasn’t long before filmmakers took notice of his rapper talent.

He told HuffPost –

“My dad was a huge movie fan and he was also a teamster. I was the youngest of nine, so I would be home alone and my dad would come home after work and say, ‘Let’s go to the movies.’”
It was Penny Marshall who pushed him toward edgy roles as she thought he could be a great tough guy in films.

Sony has not announced a sequel yet, but Mark Wahlberg’s Uncharted alongside Tom Holland was a sweeping hit on Netflix. Rumors say they could come back for another sometime in 2026.