By Fred Topel | Image property of Columbia Pictures.
We Own the Night casts Mark Wahlberg as a New York cop, only one year after he played Boston PD in The Departed. Cops are kind of old hat to the actor, who grew up as a street kid with more than his share of firsthand police experience.
Wahlberg on We Own the Night
"I know a lot about cops but I have since I was a kid," said Wahlberg. "It’s a tough job. I appreciate them more now. I, like every other crook, hated the f*cking cops when I was doing wrong. Now I appreciate them. It’s a difficult job."
Having spent time with cops on a cooperative basis during his acting preparations, Wahlberg gained even more appreciation for them. "How committed they, the ones that are doing the right thing, how committed they are to helping people. It’s a very heroic thing that they do."
Wahlberg himself might have had to be the authority figure on the set. Some of his costars were a bit more flexible with the script. "I just come to work prepared. I like to kind of dive in, especially working with a guy like James [Gray] who’s very specific in what he’s looking for. You can always ask him for a line reading and it’ll save everybody a lot of time. Joaquin [Phoenix] likes to come in and, ‘Uhhh, I don’t like this…’ And, ‘Uhhh…’ And smoke 20 cigarettes at 8 o’clock in the morning. You know like, ‘Come on, man. Let’s just do it.’ He’s like, ‘Your parts good, mine’s not.’ But everybody has their own process. I just know that James is so specific, I just come in as prepared as possible and be ready to go."
We Own the Night
We Own the Night
We Own the Night
Like The Departed, We Own the Night confronts Wahlberg with many scenes of violence. He's able to let it all go at the end of the day. "That ride home from that long day of work, you use that time to kind of reflect on the day. But the last thing I do before I go to bed is say my prayers. I usually try to go to bed with a prayer."
Coming out in October, We Own the Night is competing in the time traditionally reserved for Oscar-buzz movies. Wahlberg hopes the movie just speaks for itself. "You never know. I’m extremely proud of the movie. I thought the movie’s awesome. I thought James in the future is going to be one of the great filmmakers out there. Who knows? We’ll see what happens."
We Own the Night opens to theatres
on October 12th.
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