Tuesday, April 9, 1996
Rapper walks to beat of own career drumBy Emily Forster
Daily Bruin Contributor
Certain people are expected to complain about MTV Â
politicians, parents and clergymen, to name a few.
But now, actor, rapper and Calvin Klein model Mark Wahlberg can
be added to that group.
"Nowadays you can’t make a record without visuals, without a
video," says Wahlberg. "You just can’t, and it’s a sad thing
because it’s decreasing the amount of songs that you can see
without seeing. You can see them by hearing and it’s much more
powerful that way."
The music star, better known as Marky Mark, does realize that
sometimes a music video is essential. With little regard for his
public image, he admits that some of his hits would be misses
without the accompaniment of a stellar music video.
"If the song sucks, you need a good video to sell it," says
Wahlberg. "I’ve had that happen to me."
As Wahlberg shifts in a dark, somber suit and tight tie in the
main ballroom of the Four Seasons, his message comes across Â
think for yourself. Discussing his upcoming role in the suspense
thriller, "Fear," Wahlberg describes how he remains independent
from the entertainment industry.
"Fear" tested Wahlberg’s credo time and time again. Because of
Wahlberg, the original script for "Fear" went through several
changes before it became simply a story about Wahlberg’s character,
David, meeting and falling in love with naive Nicole (Reese
Witherspoon from "Man in the Moon"), and then later terrorizing
everyone in Nicole’s life when their relationship crumbles.
Wahlberg insisted on making it the way he liked it.
"When I met the director, we had a six-hour meeting," recalls
Wahlberg. "I told him what I liked about the script, what I didn’t
 gave him all my ideas because I had a lot on it. The script
was very much different when we first did it. It was like the Spur
Posse  these guys trying to have sex with young girls for
points. We made it a little bit more meaningful than that  a
little bit more real  and a little bit more human, although
(my character’s) not that human, but as human as you could get
under the circumstances."
With an improved script, Wahlberg had one problem playing the
violent psycho with an affinity for tattooing himself with phrases
like "Nicole 4-Eva" and decapitating dogs. It was the first meeting
between David and Nicole that Wahlberg found controversial.
"When we first interact, my character in the original script was
dancing," says Wahlberg. "They didn’t even talk. They just danced
and the script was like, ‘Their bodies move like they’re having
sex.’ I was like, ‘the kid don’t dance.’"
At first, Wahlberg’s threats fell on deaf ears, probably because
people thought he was "just busting (their) balls." When it came
time to shoot the scene, Wahlberg refused to comply with the
script.
"I was like, ‘Bro, I’m not dancing.’ The director was like ‘What
are we gonna do?’ I was like ‘Well, we’ll talk about dancing.’ It
was very simple, really. We wrote it in two seconds, shot it in
three."
The seriousness with which Wahlberg took on the role of David
caused other problems, also. When attacking Nicole’s best friend,
Margo ("Who’s the Boss’" Alyssa Milano), Wahlberg was supposed to
grab the actress’ hair and jerk her head back. But instead of
pretending, he actually grasped Milano’s hair and yanked it back,
take after take.
"I had welts on my head from where he grabbed me," recalls
Milano. "He just got swept up in the moment."
Wahlberg felt guilty about taking part in such vicious scenes.
Wahlberg does not enjoy playing villainous roles, no matter what
his friends may say.
"When you’re doing scenes like that and you have to be violent
toward somebody that you genuinely like and you’re probably having
lunch with when you break, it’s difficult," says Wahlberg. "I
dislike doing that because of that fact. It’s cool where I come
from to be the bad guy, but the bad guy always dies. It’s messy
shit to get thrown out of windows, dropped on rocks."
If Wahlberg did care what his friends thought, he would never
have gotten into the Calvin Klein underwear ads. He does not need
anyone’s permission to do what he feels is right, particularly when
he knows anyone else would do the same.
"They (Wahlberg’s friends) was trying to say that I’m soft and
blah, blah, blah," remembers Wahlberg. "But at the same time, any
one of them would drop their pants in a second for one reason or
another."
But the real trouble that the ads have caused are not teasing
from friends. Instead, they come from the assumptions of strangers
that with Wahlberg’s face, not to mention well-muscled chest and
torso, plastered all over Los Angeles, Mark Wahlberg must be
pretentious.
"I had the misfortune of living right by one of them (a
billboard) for about six months," says Wahlberg. "I was coming from
a movie with somebody in my car and they were like, ‘You don’t have
to drive me by your billboard.’ I was like, ‘Bro, I’m trying to
drive me home. What the fuck you talking about?’"
Perhaps Wahlberg’s confusion comes from his refusal to think of
himself as a sex symbol when everyone else has accepted the idea.
The half-naked image that Wahlberg sees looming above him is just
an image to the actor and nothing more. He does not see any real
aspect of himself in the billboards.
"I never really looked at it like it was me," explains Wahlberg.
"If I was driving by and I saw myself, I’d give myself the finger
or something, or at least say, ‘What’s up?’ I wouldn’t just stand
there with that stupid smile on my face all day."
The images that are real to Wahlberg are the ones that he
envisions for himself, not the ones on billboards or in music
videos. Similarly, his music is what he wants it to be, not what
others want it to sound like. Planning a new record, Wahlberg is
ready to fight the forces of conformity all the way.
"When I make the record following up the soundtrack, I’m gonna
make the record that I wanna make," promises Wahlberg. "If I make
what they want to make and it don’t sell, I’m not gonna be able to
make another record. If I make the record that I want to make and
it don’t sell, well, I still won’t be able to make another record,
so I might as well do what I want to do."
In the end, Wahlberg just wants freedom to do what he pleases,
in the entertainment industry or any other.
"I have much bigger ambitions than to be on screen," says
Wahlberg. "That’s why I’ve separated myself from everything I’ve
done over the past three years. I’ve driven my own car and
controlled my own career. That way, if I smash, at least I’m in the
driver’s seat."
Mark Wahlberg helped to rework the original script for
"Fear."