Mark Wahlberg had to be convinced to star in 'The Departed'.
Mark Wahlberg
The 47-year-old actor has revealed that award-winning director Martin Scorsese had to plead with him to star in the acclaimed crime drama, because Mark wasn't initially interested in the project.
He confessed: "'The Departed' was interesting because I wasn't committed to making the movie and my agent told Marty that I was.
"Marty called me up and he was so excited about making this movie together."
However, Mark wasn't keen on the idea of playing a supporting role to the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, and so he decided to reject the opportunity at first.
He told GQ: "I said, 'I'm not doing the movie.' I wanted a different part, and I wanted some other different things. We had talked about doing it for a long time, but things happened and the studio pushed back on different things. I [told Marty] I didn't want to do it."
But Mark's agent and the director were convinced he was the perfect fit for the role of Dignam, and so they devised a plan to get him to change his mind.
He recalled: "They sent me on a plane over the weekend to Marty's office.
"I read the script again, and I was pretty angry and I said again I wasn't going to do it. Marty told me, 'Look at this part, look at what you get to do with all these people.' He knows I'm from that [Boston] world and I talked to him about improvising and doing my own thing and he said, 'Dude, you're free to do what you want to do.'"
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