(CNN)– Mark Wahlberg has a bone to pick with Hollywood.
At a premiere Q&A for his upcoming movie, “Lone Survivor,” the 42-year-old actor set the record straight for those who might be confused: training to play a Navy SEAL in a movie, as he did for his upcoming film, is nothing like becoming the real thing.
You see, Wahlberg’s January release is based on a dangerous military mission that occurred in 2005, involving a team of four Navy SEALs. Wahlberg portrays Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, the only survivor to make it out of the deadly operation.
While Hollywood these days strives for authenticity when re-creating actual events — Luttrell wrote about his experience in the book, “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10” — Wahlberg said it would be disrespectful (not to mention wrong) to suggest that movie magic can re-create the horrors of war.
“For actors to sit there and talk about, ‘oh I went to SEAL training’ … I don’t give a f*** what you did. You don’t do what these guys do. You just don’t,” he calmly but firmly told the audience. “For somebody to sit there and say, ‘well, my job is as difficult as somebody in the military,’ how f*****g dare you. While you sit in a makeup chair for two hours. I don’t give a s*** if you’re getting your a** busted — you get to go home at the end of the day. You get to go to your hotel room. You get to order f*****g chicken or steak, or whatever the f*** it is.”
The timing of Wahlberg’s comments made many assume that he was indirectly responding to Tom Cruise, who was recently misquoted as saying his work as an actor is comparable to being a soldier in Afghanistan.
Click to watch video (WARNING: Language)
But, Wahlberg later told TMZ, he wasn’t directing his fire at Cruise specifically.
“I didn’t know that it was Tom Cruise that said that, somebody just mentioned that people were comparing that,” Wahlberg told a photographer. “I love Tom Cruise. I have the utmost respect for Tom Cruise. But I have the utmost respect for military guys, so.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2013 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
