In his new movie The Union, Mark Wahlberg gets to team up with Halle Berry. 2024 has been a busy year of stunts for Wahlberg, who also starred in Arthur the King.
Both of Wahlberg's 2024 movies — Arthur the King and The Union — have high-octane stunts. In the former, he plays an adventure racer who gets stuck 500 feet in the air, per director Simon Cellan Jones.
For most, that would be the scariest experience of their lives. For Wahlberg, it was another day in the office. The biggest stunt in The Union sees Wahlberg do an Indiana Jones-like bit on a couple of wooden beams. This was harder for Wahlberg because he had to play it nonchalantly.
“I'm sitting on that beam acting like it's no big deal, eating a sandwich, which was not fun,” Wahlberg claimed. “I couldn't really get comfortable there. And then running back and forth between the beams, even though I had a wire on, was not fun.”
Contrarily, for the Arthur the King stunt, he did not have a wire on. He even claims he did not know that sequence would be done with the actual zip line until he showed up on set. Perhaps the element of surprise made it easier to manage.
“At least with the zip line, I didn't know it was coming,” Wahlberg told me. “I mean, I knew we were doing a sequence on the zip line, but I didn't know we were going to be on the real zip line.
“I hadn't seen it. And that day, I just showed up and didn't realize we were already in the middle of that sequence. So five minutes later, I was in the middle of it, hanging. But [there] was no wire on the real zip line,” he continued.
Playing a Jersey boy
In The Union, Mark Wahlberg plays Mike, a construction worker from Paterson, New Jersey, which is not far from New York Giants Country. Luckily, known New England Patriots fan Mark Wahlberg did not feel like he was betraying his home team.
Speaking to Wahlberg this time around, he was far more open about his favorite NFL team along with his new movie. I had to ask if playing a Jersey boy from Giants Country felt sacrilegious at all.
“You know, now that you mentioned it like that, I would have to say yes, but I didn't really think about it,” Wahlberg confessed. “We have had our run, but the Giants are the only thorn in my side because of those two Super Bowls. So, other than that, I could be any other team.”
These days, the Boston-bred actor lives in Las Vegas, home of the Raiders. He has also starred in Invincible, a movie about former Philadelphia Eagle Vince Papale. These things allow him to be free of any guilt for putting on another jersey. (He even calls the Eagles his second-favorite team.)
“I played an Eagle. We lost to the Eagles in the Super Bowl. But having been an Eagle, I always consider them my second-favorite team,” Wahlberg revealed. “There's a certain loyalty to the Eagles and to Philadelphia because of that.”
His “crazy” Eli Manning rib
If anything, Wahlberg's disdain for the Giants is thanks to Eli Manning, who led the Giants to two Super Bowl victories over the Patriots. In his next movie, which he is currently filming, Wahlberg gets to “express how I feel about the Giants.”
It comes in a scene with Sacha Baron Cohen and Paul Walter Hauser. In the movie, Cohen's character is from Oxford, Mississippi, which the others mistake for Oxford as in the Queen's College.
“[It's] so random. We're talking to Sacha Baron Cohen's character, who says he went to Oxford, and they're like, ‘Oh, cool! Mr. Bean went there.' And he's like, ‘No, Oxford, Mississippi. Ole Miss,'” recalled Wahlberg. “And then Paul Walter Hauser says, ‘Oh, didn't Peyton Manning go there?' I said, ‘No, Eli.' And then I go crazy.”
Mark Wahlberg's 2024 Patriots outlook
At this moment, I had to confess my Giants fandom. Wahlberg quickly course-corrected our conversation to football.
“It'll be interesting to see who turns it around quicker. You guys aren't in much better shape than me right now,” he jabbed.
Still, the two Super Bowls trump almost any comeback I could have come up with.
“Everybody loves to say, no matter what, Tom Brady, six Super Bowls as a Patriot, all that stuff, [but] they [the Giants] always go back to those two wins. And you got that,” he conceded.
As for the Patriots in 2024, who go into the year with a rookie quarterback and head coach duo in Drake Maye and Jerod Mayo, Wahlberg remains optimistic. We were speaking fresh off the Patriots' win over the Carolina Panthers, which instilled more confidence in Wahlberg, who gave the Patriots a 10-7 record in their first non-Bill Belichick-coached year in over two decades.
“I think I'm very confident in Coach Mayo, and we're looking good so far in the preseason,” he said. “I think we'll be better than people think.”
He then turned his attention back to my Giants. I gave them a humble ceiling of 7-9, to which a smirking Wahlberg retorted, “That sounds a little more realistic.”
He also rubbed salt in the wound of former Giants running back Saquon Barkley going to the Eagles. “I know you're not happy about that,” said Wahlberg.
To his credit, he is not wrong. Fair play, Mark.
What is The Union movie about?
In Wahlberg's latest movie, The Union, Mike's basic life is interrupted when his high school girlfriend, Roxanne (Halle Berry), reemerges. She recruits him for a mission that will take him overseas. Mike Colter, J.K. Simmons, and Jackie Earle Haley also star in it.
Coming up, Wahlberg will star in Uncharted 2 for Sony. I noticed that he was still not donning a mustache, indicating the production had not yet started. Luckily, he is ready “as soon as we get the green light.”
Mark Wahlberg met with Sony CEO Josh Greenstein on the morning of our chat. It sounds like Wahlberg is sure that an Uncharted sequel will come sooner rather than later.
“We had talked about it,” he revealed. “It's something that they definitely want to do. The first one was a big success, but [I have] got to have the real mustache. I cannot do the fake mustache.”
The Union will be released on Netflix on Aug 16.
Follow Us
Subscribe