MARK WAHLBERG GREW UP WITH COPS AND ROBBERS

(VIDEO) South Boston born Mark Wahlberg grew up with cops and robbers so he knew how to play them in The Departed.

Where most actors grew up playing cops and robbers, South Boston born Mark Wahlberg knew them as he often wound up on the wrong side of the law which is why making The Departed was such a natural project for him. Mark says playing the head of the undercover unit of the Massachusetts state police didn’t require him to do much homework.

However Mark did need a refresher course for The Departed which tells the story of undercover cops infiltrating the Irish mob so he worked with Thomas B. Duffy a 30 year veteran of the Massachusetts State police who served as a technical consultant on the film.

“My growing up there has an effect on everything I do whether it’s obvious or not. I didn’t have to do much homework. The only difference was I was playing one of the cops that used to arrest me all the time. I know a lot of those guys. You either become a crook or a cop in Boston or a construction worker. There’s not too much in between.”

The Departed opens Friday.rn

“Like I said I had a lot of run-in with the law as a kid. He is the law. We’re finally on mutual turf, actually more my turf than his turf because it’s the first time he was a consultant on a movie. We got along, you know it was one of those really serious kind of quiet sets so me and Duffy would spend all our time talking about different stuff and laughing.”rn