Donnie Wahlberg
Donald Edmond Wahlberg (born
August 17,
1969) is an
actor and was a member of the
1980s boy band New Kids on the Block. He is the brother of fellow actor
Mark Wahlberg. With a background that includes
music,
feature films, and
television, Wahlberg is now working as an actor and producer.
Wahlberg was born in
Dorchester,
Massachusetts as the eighth of nine children in a
Catholic family of
Swedish and
Irish descent, Wahlberg began performing in
plays and banging on
pots and pans as early as the first grade. In
high school, he attended a fledgling arts program and became involved in theatre, acting, writing, and
directing plays.
|
Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Eric Matthews In Saw 2 |
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 Lt. 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.
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.
Wahlberg is a
body art enthusiast; he has had his left ear pierced four times, as well as piercings in his left
nostril and his left
nipple. He also has a
tattoo of his
family crest on his left arm.
Wahlberg currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife Kim, and sons Xavier and Elijah.
*A nickname by which Wahlberg has been known is "Dennis Cheese", and he is credited this way for the rap he performs on
Tiffany's song "
New Inside", the title track to her album of this name.
*In 1990, Wahlberg scored a hit on the Top 100 with "The Right Combination", a duet with Japanese pop star
Seiko Matsuda who was attempting to cross-over to North America from the Japanese market.
*His favorite book is The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
*The character
Johnny Drama on the
HBO series
Entourage is most likely based off of Donnie Wahlberg (character of
Vincent Chase is based on Donny's brother, Mark Wahlberg.)
*
Runaway (TV series), Paul Rader
* Annapolis (2006), as Burton
*
Saw II (2005), as Eric Mathews
*
Boomtown (2002–2003),
television series, as Dt. Joel Stevens
*
Dreamcatcher (2003)
*
Band of Brothers (2001), television
miniseries, as C. Carwood Lipton
*
The Sixth Sense (1999), as Vincent Gray
*
Southie (1998)
*
Ransom (1996)
*
Bullet (1996)
*http://www.donniewahlberg.net
*http://www.thosewahlbergmen.com
