Mark Wahlberg’s preparation for his role in The Gambler took a hard toll on the actor.

SUMMARY

Mark Wahlberg said The Gambler director Rupert Wyatt freaked out seeing the actor’s physique.
Wahlberg’s wife cautioned the actor against his intense training and diet as he desperately smelled food without eating it.
The actor was also challenged mentally while preparing for the role of a professor who is addicted to gambling.

Mark Wahlberg has an astounding career to his name, the actor has appeared in several action and comedy movies with huge box office hits. Certainly, he has been one of the highly sought-after actors for decades. The actor is also known for his dedication to the roles he plays.

Mark Wahlberg in The Gambler
Wahlberg possesses a unique shape-shifting ability. The actor showed his commendable physique in a lot of movies including Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain starring alongside Dwayne Johnson. However, he lost several pounds in The Gambler.

The Gambler Director Freaked Out Seeing Mark Wahlberg’s Physique

Mark Wahlberg is Jim Bennett in The Gambler, Credit: Paramount Pictures.
Rupert Wyatt, the director of The Gambler freaked out seeing Mark Wahlberg’s physique. The physique of the actor was in stark contrast to the character he was playing in the movie.

He played Jim Bennett, an English professor, and a high-stakes gambler using his habit “as a tool to strip himself of all the privilege around him and in his life,” he told Yahoo. And Wahlberg had to lose body mass for the role.
“Rupert was a little bit freaked out when he saw me. He said, ‘I don’t really think this [character] is a guy who focuses too much on fitness or nutrition.’

He wanted to me to get as thin as possible, and once I start doing something, I obsess about it. So I just kept losing more and more weight, and ended up going from 197 [pounds] to 137.”
The actor was in line with the director’s vision for the character and underwent intensive training and a strict diet as he found it obsessive to make it work.

Mark Wahlberg’s Wife Cautioned Him For His Intense Diet and Training
Mark Wahlberg in The Gambler
It’s never easy for anyone to drop several pounds of body mass and it is even harder for foodies. But this profession requires body-shifting abilities at times and Wahlberg was aware of that.

Yet “I became a miserable prick,” Wahlberg told Yahoo on preparing for The Gambler. “I’m a huge foodie. I’d have a dinner meeting with a group, and just watch them eat. I had a major, major craving for anything and everything,” he continued. Seeing his obsessive training routine and diet, his wife Rhea Durham cautioned the actor.
“I would go to places and look at the menu. My wife would be like, ‘Why are you torturing yourself?’ At one point, we went to Montecito [California]. We went to church, and then we went by this little cafe, and I just wanted to sit there and smell the food. And she was like, ‘What are you doing?’ Then I snapped at her.

I said, ‘This is all I got. And you know what? I want to do it. I’ll stay here as long as I want. You take the car, go back, and come get me.’ And I just stayed there, smelling the food,” Wahlberg added.
However, the intense physical training was not the only thing the movie required. He had to be mentally prepared for the role as well. Wahlberg had to know the essence of English literature.

“That was more challenging,” the 52-year-old said adding “Believing and understanding, and knowing those words.” Despite his efforts, the movie failed to make a mark as it grossed only $39.3 million at the box office.