Why Mark Wahlberg Moved His Family to Las Vegas

Mark Wahlberg is often associated with his chilly hometown of Boston, but as a movie and TV actor, Marky Mark made his home in California for many years. In the fall of 2022, the Uncharted star moved his family from the Golden State to the Silver State, trading sunny SoCal for the desert climate of Las Vegas.

Wahlberg reflected on his move in an October 2022 interview on The Talk. For him, it was more a practical decision than anything else. 

"I want to be able to work from home. I moved to California many years ago to pursue acting and I’ve only made a couple of movies in the entire time that I was there," he said. "So, to be able to give my kids a better life and follow and pursue their dreams, whether it be my daughter as an equestrian, my son as a basketball player, my younger son as a golfer, this made a lot more sense for us."

"I moved to Nevada where after this gubernatorial election, hopefully it will go to legislation and get a bill passed so we can get tax credit for the state, build a state-of-the-art studio here, and make this Hollywood 2.0," he explained.

Ahead of the release of his new movie The Family Plan, Wahlberg spoke to Parade about the process of filming parts of the movie in his new stomping grounds. 

"We shot in Atlanta and in my new hometown of Vegas. We filmed bits on the outskirts of Atlanta. And then, of course, in Las Vegas and we went out to Hoover Dam," he shared. "That’s as far out as we went."

Georgia's state tax credit for film production has helped transform the Peach State into the "Hollywood 2.0" Wahlberg envisions, complete with filming venues like the sprawling Tyler Perry Studios campus. While Nevada has its own tax credit program, a bill that would beef it up by nearly $200 million every year for 20 years is stalled in the state legislature. 

The Family Plan streams on Apple TV+ on Dec. 15.