FOOTBALL HERO GETS MOVIE STAR TREATMENT AT INVINCIBLE PREMIERE

(VIDEO) Mark Wahlberg and the football hero Vince Papale he plays in the film Invincible celebrate world premiere.

Philadelphia Eagles football star Vince Papale got the red carpet treatment at the world premiere of Invincible at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York. The film which stars Mark Wahlberg as Papale tells the true story of the part-time bartender whose full time dreams of playing football were fulfilled at an open call try-out. Invincible was the first time Wahlberg wore actual NFL pads and it was a good thing he did because nobody on the football field gave him any kind of star treatment as he took some pretty heavy tackles.

Director Ericson Core put Mark through his paces with a rigorous training program of running and slamming but he knew the athlete in the star would come through the pain.

“You know what I held my own. I knew going in I had to make it real. That was the only way the movie would work for me. Being a big football fan like I am I wanted to make it real and you know it hurt but I’m OK now and it was well worth the risk. I just got banged up all around, all the things you could imagine but they always kept me together. They taped me back up, they iced you up. They give you Ibuprofen, enough to get you back on the field.”

Vince who is slightly bigger in stature than Wahlberg had no doubts that the movie star could play his life out on screen. He talks about the first time he met Mark.

“He has great physical presence but none of us knew, I didn’t know what a great athlete Mark is and we get to see it in the movie. And we always thought he’ll be in a helmet and shoulder pads, we’ll never know who it is we could use stunt doubles and certainly there are shots with stunt doubles but the majority of it had to be Mark. We could see him, we knew it was him and Mark’s capable of doing it and I think audiences will really appreciate the fact that it’s authentic. He got knocked around on that helmet a lot. He said some of the worst stuff was not just taking the hits but the guys padding him on the helmet saying good job which echoed in his helmet so I think everyone saying ‘good job’ to him gave him more of a headache than the actual hits.”

Vince has a cameo in Invincible opening Friday playing one of Wahlberg’s coaches.

“Yeah but he was goofing with me the first time I saw him on the football field he kept falling on his face, dropping the football because he saw me watching and he was doing it on purpose and I’m like, ‘oh no you gotta be kidding me.’ Then we went out and I said Mark, ‘let me show you this,’ and he just started laughing and he showed me what skills he had and I knew he was the real deal on the field. But aside from that he’s the real deal off the field away from the screen and away from the game. He’s just an extremely nice guy and a wonderful man to be around.”