Movies - TV
Donnie Wahlberg Took His Sixth Sense Role Further Than Anyone Expected
By Travis Yates
Spoiler Warning!
This story contains spoilers for "The Sixth Sense."
"The Sixth Sense" opens with a haunting sequence where child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) and his wife come home to find Crowe's distressed former patient, Vincent Gray (Donnie Wahlberg), in their house. Gray shoots Crowe and then turns the gun on himself in a sequence that makes its bid for the most powerful three minutes in cinema history.
The opening scene was a tone-setter for the psychological thriller, and it fell on the inexperienced shoulders of Wahlberg to make it work. An inspired performance from a former boyband member left director M. Knight Shyamalan telling The Hollywood Reporter, "We went from 'Hey, this is a fun movie' to 'people are really taking this seriously.'"
Wahlberg used a technique known as method acting to lose 43 pounds in a little over a month for the role. To further his ability to relate to Vincent, Wahlberg would go weeks without showering and even slept overnight in a Philadelphia park.
Wahlberg called the role a game-changer for his acting career which now spans more than two decades. Even though he was initially deemed too old and too fit, he proved to Shyamalan and everyone else that he absolutely had the right stuff for the role.