Men & You: Mark Wahlberg Talks About Juggling Acting, Producing, Family Life and More

The Hunky Mark Wahlberg stars in Transformers: Age Of Extinction, the fourth part in the blockbuster series and he's looking as good as ever! He talks to Cosmo about playing a dad in real life and reel life, and finally getting his high school diploma.

Cosmo: How excited are you to be in a movie your kids can see?

Mark Wahlberg: “Yeah, I’m excited and I think they’re excited. I wouldn’t say I necessarily did it for them, but having children definitely played a part in my decision to do Transformers when Michael (Bay) first mentioned it. But having kids who are old enough to understand what I do does influence the movies I am making and the roles I am taking on now to some degree.”

C: How are you able to juggle acting, producing and family life? mW: “Once I took out the night life part of my life—you know going out from 10 to three, four, five, six in the morning—there’s enough time in the day to do all the stuff I’m doing and then some. My family travels with me when I work most of the time or I go back and forth on weekends.”

C: Your character in Transformers is very protective over his teenage daughter. Being a father of two girls yourself, is that something you can identify with?

MW: “Yeah, if some knuckle-head dude comes around wanting to take my daughter out on a date, that’s going to be a big problem for me. I could definitely identity with my character about that, but in real life, I’m trying not to think about it.”

C: You’re known for preparing physically for your movies...

MW: “I do like to be physically ready for any role I play, but Transformers was a little different. This was more about endurance and being ready to be thrown around for a few weeks. It was tough. At one point I was running along a ledge 19 storeys up with just a little wire stopping me falling to my death. It was scary and every day was like that.”

C: You recently went through home schooling for your high school diploma. Why?
MW: “I always wanted to do it, I just never really had the time and it wasn’t really available online until now. So I thought, while I’m sitting in my trailer for hours and hours a day, I might as well be productive and study. I don’t want my kids saying, ‘Dad, you didn’t finish school, why do I have to?’ It’s also important when I’m looking at my third grader’s homework and I’m like, ‘Sh*t, I don’t think I understand this.’ It’s not going to get any easier. The adding and subtracting is gone.”

 

This interview was originally published in the June '14 issue of Cosmopolitan India.