Mark Wahlberg, trying to do right

Pride of Dot Mark Wahlberg will be on Extra tonight, talking candidly about his rise to fame and some of his more foolish, youthful choices.

“I made a lot of bad mistakes when I was younger,” Marky Mark admits, in a video on the show’s site. “When I was 17, I got sent to an adult prison and, you know, that was not where I wanted to be.” He remembers being in jail, watching his brother Donnie blow up on TV with New Kids on the Block. He’d passed on joining the massively popular boy band, “which I didn’t think was a cool thing to be involved with,” he admitted. “I was a street kid, I was into the hip hop thing, but I wasn’t going to be singing love songs. And then I end up sitting in the TV room in the Plymouth House of Corrections trying to convince people that that’s my brother and I could have done that.”

The Funky Bunch star never dreamed he’d be an actor, but experienced an “aha” moment while talking with Penny Marshall about a about a role in “Renaissance Man.” “I wanted to be the most serious rapper,” he said. “A real guy from the street, that sort of thing. And she was like, ‘You’re an idiot. You’ve been acting the whole time. You act like you’re a tough guy, and you’re a sweet kid. Why don’t you give this a shot?” (Laverne gives good advice.)

Wahlberg’s big hope now is that – unlike him – his kids will listen to reason. “Being a father, I’m trying to figure out how I can convince my kids to take my advice and learn from my mistakes without actually having to experience those things for themselves,” he said.

Seems like the dad of three is being snapped every other minute either leaving church or out with his kids, so looks like he’s on the right path.
Source: Boston.com