The year was 1991. Mark Wahlberg was fresh out of jail for a racially motivated assault of a Vietnamese man. He recalls his mood.
“I was lost. I knew I had to change my life. I had already quit News Kids On the Block. I had to become someone else.”
But originality was never Wahlberg’s strong suit. He told his friends to start calling him Marky Mark. “Yeah, they laughed at it,” he remembers. “But what did I care? Less than a year later, I was the leader of a funky bunch.”
Their hit single, “Good Vibrations,” has been referred to as “the single most moving song of the ’90s” by Rolling Stone. Kurt Cobain cited it as one of his inspirations for the few late recordings on Nevermind. Wahlberg, however, felt he was stuck in a rut again.
“Now what was I? Teen-pop eye-candy? Was that all I would be forever? I thought about my future and realized I didn’t want to have deathbed visits from teeny boppers.”
He decided he was going to attempt the impossible: The double switcheroo. It had never been accomplished. The most notable attempt was that of Marilyn Monroe back to Norma Jeane Mortenson, which the CIA successfully prevented.
Wahlberg, most renowned for his portrayal of a “Boston guy” in 2001’s Planet of the Apes, told his friends to start calling him Mark Wahlberg again. “Yeah, they laughed,” he admits. “But I don’t care about that. I’m too cool to care, ya’ know? I never graduated high school. I’m literally too cool for school.”
The change worked. People forgot seemingly overnight that he had headlined a band which produced one of the classics of our time, and his acting career began without the usual eye-rolling that accompanies musicians in film.
To this day, Wahlberg can’t believe he pulled it off. When he speaks about it, he smiles and shakes his head in disbelief. “There are people who don’t even know that Mark Wahlberg can sing. But they know that song, and they know about Marky Mark,” he laughs. “Marky Mark. What a stupid name…”
Reportedly, Wahlberg is looking into Ted 2 after he finishes Transformers 4, where he and the anthropomorphic stuffed bear voiced by Seth MacFarlane mistakenly get gay married.
“I mean, now that it’s legal or whatever, it could be interesting. I turned down Brokeback Mountain cause I’m uncomfortable with homosexuals having sex, but I think, like, me being the wife in that relationship, I don’t know, there’s probably some good ‘not tonight, I got a headache’ jokes in there.”
“But I’m not gonna fuck a bear. Mark my words,” he warned, with a wink.
The way he has changed his name has inspired numerous people working under stage names. Charlie Sheen listed Wahlberg as providing “wonderful support” during his transition back to Carlos Estevez for his upcoming film. Some singers are also planning to try the trick: Rihanna, looking to garner more fame as an actress, is considering being credited as Robyn Fenty from now on. She hopes it will boost the inevitable Battleship 2 to the top of the box office.
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