the awards editions 2010-2011

hE’s A
FIghtEr
After A long production roAd,
mArk wAhLbErg’s boxing fAmily
sAgA finAlly enters the ring
By mIke FLemInG
i
n this year’s stirring Oscar race, many of the contenders
are films that traveled long and hard roads just
to get made. By that measure, few put in more work
than Mark Wahlberg did for The Fighter, the David
O. Russell-directed drama in which he plays Irish
Micky Ward, the welterweight who fought his way to
an unlikely world championship. Christian Bale lost
30 pounds to play half-brother crack addict Dicky
Eklund, but Wahlberg’s commitment was even more
dramatic. The moment he learned nearly five years ago that
he’d be starring in the movie alongside Matt Damon for dir–
ector Darren Aronofsky, Wahlberg built a boxing ring in his
backyard, hired two trainers on his own dime, and worked
hours each day to hone his boxing skills. Wahlberg never
stopped, not when Damon dropped out and Brad Pitt came
in, not when Aronofsky dropped out, Pitt left, and the project
was nearly knocked out. Wahlberg joined David Hoberman
and Todd Lieberman as producers so, when the project
was on the ropes, Wahlberg helped rework the picture from
a $50 million studio film into a scrappy $20 million indie.
DeaDline: Micky and Dicky were the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts.
You came out of Dorchester. How far away were you
from these guys and how aware were you of their story?
8 deadline.com
maRk WahlbeRg: Lowell was 30 minutes away from
Dorchester. We were on different sides of Boston. Lowell
is more like a suburb, but not a rich one. These guys
were big time legends. Dicky is older than me, so I wasn’t
as aware of him as I was of Micky, who was considered a superhero
where I came from. I knew Dicky was supposed to
be the great fighter but that he had his battles with drugs,
and I’d seen the documentary High On Crack Street filmed
in Lowell about him.
DeaDline: How did you become involved?
WahlbeRg: I wanted to make a boxing movie. I talked
about a movie where I’d play Vinnie Curto and Bob De
Niro would play his trainer Angelo Dundee. I tried to make
The Black Dahlia with Brian De Palma because there was an
element of boxing in it. I’d already built a ring in my backyard
by then. I first met Micky when I was 18 years old, and
was a huge fan. I thought, this is the movie I should make.
John Herzfeld and I went to Lowell to see Micky and Dicky
and found they’d already sold the rights ten times over and
it had become such a cluster fuck that it seemed there was
no way we’d be able to sort it out. Then, five years ago, Brad
Weston called me and said he had a script to send me about
Irish Micky Ward the boxer and did I know him? I was
blown away by the script, and thought, we’re getting this
done. I started training the day I got back from vacation.
That’s how this whole thing began.
DeaDline: You grew up on the streets in a tough neighborhood
like they did. How did their story speak to your own experiences?
WahlbeRg: There were so many comparisons to my life,
my story, my upbringing. I am the youngest of nine kids.
My brother was much more successful and was looked at as
the chosen one, while I was the one in trouble. I had to play
Micky. Dicky was a flashier role, but it wasn’t about that for
me. It was about being believable as a guy who could win
the welterweight title, and not look like an actor who could
maybe box a little bit. Those four and a half years turned
out to be the best thing for me. I never stopped training,
even when I was making other movies.
DeaDline: How helpful was having a genuine Boston guy as
producer and star for gaining the trust of a family that obviously
didn’t know what was coming when they participated in that
documentary High on Crack Street?
WahlbeRg: I assured them that they would be portrayed
in the light they deserved, and that I cared about them.
That’s the only way I know how to do things. When I was