Mark Wahlberg Won’t Appear in Superhero Movies For A Hilarious Reason
Can we blame Mark Wahlberg for saying no to superheroes?
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Actor and former rapper Mark Wahlberg recently revealed his reasons for not having appeared in a superhero movie as of yet, and it is a pretty good one. The star of Boogie Nights, Max Payne, and The Happening basically feels he would have a hard time acting while wearing spandex and a cape. Leaving aside that The Incredibles pretty definitively closed the door on the idea that superheroes have to wear capes, it is amusing that an actor who has been in movies with interstellar shape-changing robots, a talking teddy bear voiced by Seth McFarlane, and the single worst Planet of the Apes would put his foot down about this. Still, no shade on Wahlberg on this. As with anyone else doing a job, one should respect his comfort levels and even understand he simply does not think he would pull off spandex.
Still, Mark Wahlberg continued in an interview with Comic Book that he was not shutting the door on superhero movies or dismissing them out of hand. To his great credit, Wahlberg does actually have an acting resume that ranges from action (Shooter) to gritty drama (The Departed) to goofy comedy/social education (The Other Guys). As an actor, he is certainly not afraid to bring into unexpected directions. Nor is he against genre entertainment (obviously), going on in the interview to describe his long dormant quest to bring the 1970s science fiction TV show The Six Million Dollar Man to the big screen.
All that said, it does not seem like Mark Wahlberg gives up on film projects easily. The film adaptation of the popular Naughty Dog video game series Uncharted was so long in development with Wahlberg attached that he eventually aged out of the lead Nathan Drake role and is now portraying that character’s mentor Sully (which does feel more appropriate to the famously Bostonian actor). That is just one of a number of film projects Wahlberg has coming up in the next year, including co-starring in Arthur the King with Simu Liu, a man who is not afraid to appear in superhero spandex on screen. He is appearing in the religious biopic Father Stu with controversial actor/director Mel Gibson, who is coming out of cancellation in full force.
Mark Wahlberg himself did briefly risk cancellation himself when it recently came up that he may have gifted his Uncharted co-star/current Spider-Man Tom Holland a sex toy. Obviously, fairly untoward behavior towards a coworker, but it fortunately came out that he was genuinely giving the younger man a body massager for muscle relief after the strenuous workouts Wahlberg is famous for. Reportedly, Holland did actually find Walhberg’s sheer level of physical fitness intimidating enough that it inspired him to get especially jacked for the role of a globe-trotting treasure hunter. Maybe someday Shang-Chi and Peter Parker will be able to convince Wahlberg to strap the spandex on, but hey, there are also lots of non-superhero roles in the MCU. So we’ll just have to wait and see when Wahlberg finally crumbles and joins up for superhero fun.
