Mark Wahlberg and Leonardo DiCaprio didn't get along when they were cast in the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries. Source - Island Pictures
He started out making pop hits with his group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
But in the early 90s, Mark Wahlberg switched his career goals and embarked on acting, hoping to make it big in Hollywood.
However, he told a group of young people at an event in LAon Tuesday, his embryonic foray into movies almost fell at the first hurdle thanks to one of the biggest actors in the world.
Wahlberg, 47, recalled during a talk at the 2018 LEAP Foundation Conference how he feuded with Leonardo DiCaprio over the 1995 film The Basketball Diaries.
DiCaprio was already a rising star coming off the back of his roles in TV shows Parenthood and Growing Pains and a best supporting actor Oscar nomination for the 1993 movie What's Eating Gilbert Grape.
It seems the established young star wasn't keen on the former boybander taking a role in the drama about a teen basketball star's descent into drug addiction, the Daily Mail reports.
"He didn't want me for the part, and I didn't think he was right for the part," Wahlberg said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"We both had to really learn how to respect each other, and we earned it."