Mark Wahlberg Details Grueling On-Set Injury He Worked Through on New Film
Mark Wahlberg revealed the harrowing injury he sustained while shooting his new movie in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. In Arthur the King, Wahlberg plays the captain of an adventure racing team who befriends a stray dog during a race across the Dominican Republic. As he does with all of his roles, Wahlberg wanted to train as an actual racer would.
"You want to pay attention to the small stuff and you want to look the part," Wahlberg said. "Unfortunately, I tore my meniscus the first day, so all my training went out the window," he continued. "Then it's basically just about getting through it."
The meniscus serves as a cushion between the shin and thigh bones. A tear often results from a forceful twist or rotation of your knee. Some cases heal on their own with icing and rest, but other cases can be serious enough to result in surgery.
"I got to understand the suffering a little bit more than I wanted to," Wahlberg told ET.
Wahlberg reported that his injury occurred on the first afternoon of production while shooting the day’s second scene. A set doctor told him that if he didn’t shut down production, it could worsen the tear. But the star couldn’t bear the thought of letting down the rest of his cast and crew.
"I just felt like, you know, it took a long time to get the movie off the ground and we were in the middle of COVID, and if I had shut it down, I don't know if we would've got it up and running again," he admitted. "So I just kind of toughed it out and I found different ways of getting through."
The injury put Wahlberg in a situation he’d never experienced before, but it turned out to be just the first of many on Arthur the King’s set. "I did a lot of things that I didn't want to do. The first was walking out of my trailer in spandex," he joked of the bodysuits racers wear under their uniforms.
"I thought I would never put on a superhero suit or spandex, and I put it on and I had to shave my legs. What little hair I had on my legs I had to shave off," the star explained. "It still hasn't come back."
Arthur the King arrives in cinemas March 15. Simu Liu and Juliet Rylance star alongside Wahlberg. You can check out the trailer below.