 Donnie
Wahlberg is one of the few performers who has been able to go from early stardom
as a teen idol to a respected career as a dramatic character actor. Born Donald
Edmund Wahlberg in Dorchester, MA, on August 17, 1969, Donnie came from a large
family (he has five brothers and three sisters), and first became interested in
performing as a way of getting attention in a busy household.
Wahlberg developed an interest in music early on, and was
only ten years old when he joined his first band, a local group called Risk.
Wahlberg had a strong interest in black music and became a passionate hip-hop
fan, learning how to breakdance and write his own raps; a few years later,
Wahlberg joined an R&B-styled group called the Kool Aid Bunch, which also
featured singer Danny Wood.
At age 15, Wahlberg joined New Kids On The Block and in a few
years they went from playing at high school parties to becoming the pop music
sensation. Donnie was known as the "bad boy" of the group and was
known to curse during live performances on awards shows. Following the group's
disbanding in 1994, Wahlberg made a decision to go in another direction,
focusing on writing and producing for his younger brother, Mark.
As an actor, Donnie Wahlberg's first film appearance was in
the 1996 film Bullet with Mickey Rourke and Tupac Shakur, a project that lit a
spark in him, motivating him to continue to work on his craft. Also in 1996, he
appeared as a kidnapper in over his head in Ransom with Mel Gibson. Wahlberg
received attention for his role in the 1999 film The Sixth Sense, playing the
distraught patient of Bruce Willis's character in the opening sequence. This
role was originally intended for a 13-year-old boy until Wahlberg met with
writer and director M. Night Shyamalan to inquire about obtaining the rights for
a theatre production and ended up getting this pivotal role.
In 2001 Wahlberg co-starred as 2nd Lieutenant C. Carwood
Lipton in the Emmy Award-winning television miniseries Band of Brothers.
Wahlberg also starred in the 2002–2003 NBC drama series Boomtown as Joel
Stevens, an intense Los Angeles police detective struggling to keep his troubled
home life private while remaining dedicated to facing the challenges of his
daily work life. Graham Yost, executive producer and writer of Boomtown, had
worked with Wahlberg in Band of Brothers and was so impressed by his performance
that he wrote the role of Joel Stevens specifically for him.
2003 was also the year that Wahlberg starred along side
Timothy Olyphant and Jason Lee as the mentally challenged Duddits in William
Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan's adaptation of the Stephen King alien-invasion
thriller, Dreamcatcher. Many see this as one of Wahlberg's most demanding roles.
In 2005 Donnie starred as the main detective in the second
installment of the Saw series.
In September 2006, he will star in the lead role of the new
TV series Runaway on the upcoming CW Television Network.
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