Boston Premiere of The Happening

Boston Herald
Dorchester toughie-gone-Hollywood Mark Wahlberg is confident that the Boston Celtics will be the NBA champions. But he’d prefer for them to do it the easy way!

“I don’t want no seventh game heart attacks. I like a nice, easy victory,” said the actor, who was in town last night for a benefit screening of his new flick, “The Happening,” at the AMC Loews Boston Common.

The stubble-faced star, who has a Celtics logo on his basketball court back home in La-La, hosted the special showing of M. Night Shyamalan’s scary flick for his “Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation.”

“I can’t forget about where I came from. I try to create some opportunities for some kids and it’s a beautiful thing,” he told the Track. “We’ve been able to do some amazing things and help some kids get an education and pursue their dreams.”

During the red carpet action last night, Mark gave a shout-out to his big bro, Donnie Wahlberg, who is embarking on a New Kids on the Block reunion tour.

“I’m happy for them. I think they’ll do well. My brother’s a very talented guy. They’ll be all right.”

Mark on Extra

Extra

Mark on The Early Show

15 Question with Mark Wahlberg

Moviefone
1. What intrigued you about 'The Happening'?

I always take seriously whether or not I'm going to make a film -- weigh all the ups and the downs -- and there was really no downside to making this movie. I've been a big fan of [director M.] Night [Shyamalan]. I think he wrote an incredible screenplay, and I got to play a part that I don't get to play that often.

2. Is M. Night Shyamalan as mysterious as his movies?

Um ... he can be. But he's a sweet, sweet man. He just has this other sick twisted side that gets off on freaking people out.

3. The film's pretty gruesome. Do you think audiences should be warned?

Nah, they can handle it. But yeah, I didn't think I'd be affected by it because obviously I knew everything that was going to happen, and I was still ... He rocked me!

4. What is it about all these recent apocalyptic movies that fascinates audiences so much?

It's all the stuff that's going on in the world and the environment. There is evidence pointing to the possibility of these things [in the movie] happening. We must have respect for all the laws of nature. It's just like anything else: You don't take care of your teeth, your teeth are going to take care of you. People need to start taking responsibility. We've been given this beautiful gift by God and we need to cherish it and protect it.

5. You and Zooey Deschanel play a married couple who are looking after a little girl. Did you think about your fiancée, Rhea Durham, and your own two children while you were filming this?

I think about them every second of the day. And I always draw on all my real-life experiences and my real-life situation. That's all I got! More...

Mark Wahlberg and the M. Night of the living dread

NY Daily News
You think you get chills watching one of M. Night Shyamalan's thriller? Try making a movie with the guy.

Actors in his latest, "The Happening," say he turned them all into paranoid wrecks.

"He's literally made me afraid of everything," star Mark Wahlberg told us at Tuesday's premiere of the eerie unnatural-disaster story. "I can't enjoy my life the way I used to."

The jovial Shyamalan insists that he's far less intense than his actors portray him: "It's a bad rap. I'm a good guy!"

The "Sixth Sense" filmmaker said he tailored the part in latest cuticle-biter for Wahlberg. Wahlberg disagreed: "The only reason I got the role is because Will Smith wasn't available."

Some wondered if maybe the movie was too scary for the actor, who snuck out of the Ziegfeld Theater early. In fact, he headed back to his hotel to watch his beloved Celtics lose to the Lakers. We may be seeing even less of Walhberg, who also skipped the after-party - he's told friends he may take a break from acting once girlfriend Rhea Durham delivers their third child.

But don't expect the former rapper to reunite with the Funky Bunch. "I wish them well!" he laughed. "But rap is a young man's game."

Mark Wahlberg Calls Rhea Durham His 'Future Wife'

People
Mark Wahlberg and model Rhea Durham have been together for years – and are proud parents to daughter Ella, 4, and son Michael, 2.

Now, as the couple expects baby number three, are they finally ready to walk down the aisle?

They haven't announced an engagement, but the actor did call Durham his "future wife" at the New York premiere of his new film, The Happening.

"I did my own thing for some 30-odd years," he told PEOPLE at the Tuesday night event. "I had a blast, and now I feel like I have a real purpose."

The actor dropped the "wife" word when discussing his 37th birthday on June 5. "I had a beautiful day with my kids and my future wife," he said. "We went to brunch." More...

Mark on Letterman

The Happening NY Press Junket

FEARnet
Warning: The following interview contains spoilers! Read on at your own risk!

How closely does this storyline reflect your worldview?

Shyamalan: You know, they’re all a little bit like therapy, all these movies—about something that’s bothering me or family things. I’m always working them in, in kind of like a journal way. But it does represent the things that are on my mind. I think everybody in our generation is starting to worry about these types of things right now, certainly in an election year, think about the future. It’s interesting, the slew of kind of end-of-the-world movies. There’s an anxiety that’s in the air, and it sort of mimics the 50s, the same kinds of anxieties that were about our future…where are we headed? Are we going in the right direction? Is it too late to change course? [I had that] all in the back of my head. I never thought I was actually all that serious a person. But when I sit down to write I guess more adult things come out. More...

Video Interviews with Mark on Access Hollywood, MSN (Fr) and Fixx (Germany)

Access Hollywood Interview

Fixx Interview - check out the german dubbing of Mark


Phénomènes - Interview Mark Wahlberg

Mark Wahlberg is still a 'Happening' guy, but his priorities are family & faith by Elizabeth Weitzman

NY Daily News
God and family. That's what motivates Mark Wahlberg these days.

Yes, the same Mark Wahlberg who once ran up against the Boston Police Department with stubborn regularity, whose turn as a rapper became most notable for a tendency to drop his pants, whose life inspired many of the bad-boy exploits that propel every episode of "Entourage."

Of course, now he's the established, Emmy-nominated producer of shows like "Entourage." And to be frank, the way his life has turned out is as surprising as the twist ending in any movie by M. Night Shyamalan - who made Wahlberg's latest film, "The Happening."

Even the actor admits that he's not the most obvious choice for the role of a mild-mannered science teacher running from a mass environmental disaster. As someone who has played more than his share of cops, cons, soldiers and athletes, Wahlberg says, "I read the script and thought, 'Wow, this is something audiences certainly wouldn't expect from me.' People keep asking if I save the day. And no, I don't play a physical guy at all." More...

The Happening - The Characters

To play Elliot, M. Night Shyamalan always had envisioned Mark Wahlberg, who began his career in music, then broke out with a series of unpredictable and unforgettable screen roles in such films as Three Kings, Boogie Nights and The Perfect Storm. He sealed his acting credentials by garnering Oscar(R) and Golden Globe(R) nominations for Best Supporting Actor in Martin Scorsese's The Departed and became a sought-after action hero after taking the lead roles in such hits as Invincible and Shooter. Yet Elliot was unlike any character Wahlberg, who hails from a rough background, had played before: a quiet, sensitive teacher pushed to the edge by inexplicable events in just a few short hours.

Still, Shyamalan was convinced the role was right for Wahlberg. "I know Mark and I've always seen him as this sort of guy," says the writer/director. "I don't know the tough guy from Boston who gets in scrap fights, I know a different guy. And when I've seen glimpses of Mark playing this sort of person, for example in Three Kings in the scene when he's calling his wife from Iraq, I just love him, and I've always wanted to do a whole movie with him like that." More...

Mark on Jonathan Ross