Who wouldn’t want to work with a renowned filmmaker like Martin Scorsese? After all, with movies like The Wolf of Wall Street, he is one of the most sought out directors out there. However, it looks like Martin Scorsese met his match in Mark Wahlberg. The actor who has time and again shown his incredible talents on screen was absolutely not ready to part-take in a film with Martin Scorsese.
The Departed
Of course, all of that changed with The Departed when the duo finally worked together. But the change of heart didn’t happen before extensive back and forth between Mark Wahlberg and Martin Scorsese. In fact, even after agreeing to work with the director, the two would be found butting heads on the set of the film.
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Was There Bad Blood between Mark Wahlberg and Martin Scorsese?
Martin Scorsese
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When Mark Wahlberg decided to get onboard The Departed train, the journey was pretty rocky. He and Martin Scorsese would often be disagreeing with each other. The actor even told The Telegraph about these struggles stating, “Marty and I were constantly in this struggle. I had problems with Marty.”
He recalled an incident where he would not agree to cut his hair and this enraged Scorsese. Why wouldn’t Wahlberg cut his hair, though? Well, due to scheduling issues, Wahlberg’s time on The Departed started to bleed into his time on Invincible, a role that had to have him grow his hair out.
“I was only supposed to do a couple of weeks on The Departed so I was able to grow my hair for Invincible. But then the schedule changed and four months later I’m still working on The Departed so I wouldn’t cut my hair and Marty was pissed off. He was like, ‘You’ve got to cut your f**king hair,’ and I was, ‘I don’t give a f**k.’”
However, all’s well that ends well as the film went on to be critically acclaimed with a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes. A ton of critics also mentioned The Departed as one of the top ten films of 2006. Scorsese even won a Golden Globe for his work on the film. Wahlberg also received a reported $5 million salary.
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Mark Wahlberg Didn’t Want to do The Departed
Mark Wahlberg in The Departed
While everything ended on a good note, it took some serious work to get Wahlberg to sign on for the film. The actor’s then-agent, rightfully, thought that he would love to do a film with the renowned director. Wahlberg then had to personally turn down Scorsese.
He told GQ,
“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. I said, ‘I’m not doing the movie.’”
After some arguments and yelling between him and his agent, Wahlberg agreed to meet up with Scorsese.
“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.”
Thankfully, Scorsese agreed to Wahlberg’s demands and stated that he was free to do whatever improvisation he liked in the film. After the film had been released, the Boogie Nights actor wanted to make a sequel, however, that never came to fruition.
The Departed is available to stream on Netflix.
Source: The Telegraph