Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg are two of the biggest names in Hollywood with the former’s glory being magnificent. Both of them have gained a lot of fame and their talent is one to be admired upon. They have both done some great movies and Wahlberg’s mind is in various other fields that have only added to his success.
The two have done many movies that have topped the box office. However, there was a moment when neither of them was okay with the other’s company. They did not like working with each other in their early days. Luckily, that feud ended soon after when they proved themselves to each other.
Leonardo DiCaprio Did Not Want To Work With Mark Wahlberg
Before Leonardo DiCaprio did Titanic, the actor was working with Mark Wahlberg on a movie called The Basketball Diaries. The movie was also set to create an entirely new narrative for Wahlberg which showed him outside of his persona as a rapper and more so as an actor.
“Leonardo was like, ‘Over my dead f— body. Marky Mark’s not going to be in this f— movie. Because we’d had a thing — I didn’t even realize it, [but] I was a bit of a d— to him at a charity basketball game. So he was like, ‘This f— a— is not going to be in this movie.'”
When the two were grouped together for the movie, things were not as smooth as one would imagine. Neither of them liked the other and they did not want each other to be in the movie either. They both thought that DiCaprio could be replaced and Wahlberg was not fit for the role either. As they were both new in the industry, there was much for them to learn.
Leonardo DiCaprio Learned To Admire Mark Wahlberg’s Acting
The Basketball Diaries was a movie that came out before Leonardo DiCaprio’s and Mark Wahlberg’s careers had skyrocketed. However, it ended up becoming a hidden gem amongst various of their glorified projects. It was Wahlberg’s audition that made DiCaprio finally accept him in the movie and they finally patched things up for the film to work out well.
“So I come in and I do the audition and I kind of look at him and he kind of looks at me, and then we do a scene, and they’re like, ‘Hmm, this f— dude’s pretty good, right.'”
The two even worked together on The Departed many years later. The movie played a very important role in Wahlberg’s life as it managed to get him his first Oscar nomination.
Source: People
