Mark Wahlberg Had Some Beef With The Departed Director Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese's 2006 film "The Departed," a remake of Andrew Lau's and Alan Mak's 2002 cop drama "Infernal Affairs," was about a criminal (Matt Damon) who had been raised by a mob boss (Jack Nicholson) specifically to infiltrate the Boston PD. At the same time, a cop (Leonard DiCaprio) was assigned a deep, deep undercover mission into Nicholson's mob, having to pose as a career criminal. Both occupied their roles for years and began to doubt their identities. "The Departed" is one of Scorsese's more awarded films, which is strange as he has made several much better films since (for my money, "The Wolf of Wall Street," "Silence," and "Killers of the Flower Moon" are all stone-cold classics).
"The Departed" was nominated for five Academy Awards and won four, for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Editing. The only actor nominated for the film was Mark Wahlberg, playing a very aggressive and extremely Bostonian Staff Sergeant named Sean Dignam. Dignam didn't play a major role in the film's story, but he wielded the c-word with aplomb. At the time, many Oscar pundits found it unusual that Wahlberg was nominated and not Damon, DiCaprio, Nicholson, or even Alec Baldwin, who played one of Sean Dignam's tough-talking associates. To this day, it is Wahlberg's only Oscar nomination for acting (he was also nominated for the Best Picture nominee "The Fighter," which he produced).
Wahlberg recently admitted on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast that he didn't bring a great attitude to the set of "The Departed." He was pissed about not playing the role he wanted, and he also butted heads with Scorsese about, of all things, his hair.
'I was pissed about a couple things
At the time, Wahlberg was deeply devoted to his craft, often preparing for roles by visiting weird, seedy locations. He also liked staying in character when the cameras stopped rolling, which posed a problem with a mean character like Dignam. Staying in character off-camera, by the way, is not one of the tenets of Method Acting, but certain actors have affected the practice nonetheless. Walhberg was one of them.
Walhberg doesn't elucidate which role he auditioned for, but one might assume it was one of the two lead roles occupied by Damon or DiCaprio. He also did indeed get paid, so his comment about not getting paid was likely slang for not getting paid a larger amount. Wahlberg said:
"I was a little pissed about a couple of things but look it all worked out in the end, I think. Originally I was supposed to play another part. Originally I was supposed to get paid. Originally, I was supposed to be ... you know. And then we agreed that I would play Dignam, when I saw the advantages of playing that part and how I would approach the situation with everybody else playing opposite me."
It certainly sounds like Wahlberg was gunning for a larger role, and that he was only briefly angry that he was relegated to a supporting player. Luckily, being a supporting player in a Scorsese movie about Boston gangsters was no small feat in itself.
But then issues arose over Wahlberg's hair. He revealed that the shoot for "The Departed" was interspersed between the actor's filming of "Four Brothers" and "Invincible," and he was required to get hair extensions that he refused to remove for Scorsese. Some assumed he wore a wig.
Don't touch the hair
Wahlberg said:
"I had another movie after. I just finished 'Four Brothers,' and I was going into 'Invincible' after. I was trying to grow my hair out, which is why I had that weird hair. Everybody's like 'What's the wig about?' It was not a wig, I was just trying to grow my hair for the next film. But I totally understood where Marty was coming from. He had to head with Jack, he had to deal with Matt and Leo and Alec when I liked it and everything. The studio![...] I was supposed to be in-and-out in five weeks."
Hence why he left, got hair extensions, and returned. He noted that hair extensions take about eight hours, and he refused to cut them off. He eventually came to peace with playing Dignam, saying that when he first read for the part, he felt it was a good one. He wanted to bring Bostonian authenticity to his character and felt there weren't enough films about the mob in that city. But that authenticity of "the big picture," he eventually noted, distracted from his actorly job of getting deep into his character. He said:
"I was thinking kind of broad big picture, not necessarily my own individual goals or even the opportunity for me as an actor. And then when I read the party again I was like 'Oh yes, there's something here."
When asked about his Oscar nomination, Wahlberg noted that he's competitive, yes, but that he'd be just as happy winning an Oscar as he would having a hefty payout on a billion-dollar grossing movie. Most actors, he says, would secretly rather have the money.