I take my hat off to my friend, Mark Wahlberg, because I know that it took him a long time to make 'The Fighter,' and he overcame a lot of obstacles to do it, and now the film is an unqualified success.
I take my hat off to my friend, Mark Wahlberg, because I know that it took him a long time to make 'The Fighter', and he overcame a lot of obstacles to do it, and now the film is an unqualified success.
Mark Wahlberg's, like, 150 pounds! I'm 250 lean. I look like Mark Wahlberg ate Mark Wahlberg.
We goofed around a lot and acted silly. It was great working with Mark Wahlberg too. Some off scenes I had with him I was terrified to do, but he was great.
Mark Wahlberg, when I was in high school, people were like, 'You look like Marky Mark!' Then as I got older, they were like, 'You look like Donnie Wahlberg.' Now they're like, 'You look like Donnie Wahlberg's cousin from Massachusetts.'
I first wore a hat after seeing a friend wear a hat. It seemed like a neat way to keep snow off my head without having to wear a beanie, so I tried it on for a while. Turns out I started wearing the hat at around the time people took pictures of me and put them online and in newspapers, so it kind of became part of my public image.
The writing of the record didn't take long, because I just have a huge stack of papers and I just pluck from the stack. It took a long time because it's very expensive to make records; in fact, I think it's a complete rip-off.
People I looked up to a lot were, you know, Oprah because she had a rough childhood but overcame so many obstacles and broke barriers to become who she is. It was really eye opening to me: just because I had a rough childhood doesn't mean that I can't make something of myself.
Well, obviously I'm not Mark Wahlberg - I have much better abs and I look much better in a pair of Calvin Kleins but when I saw Mark Wahlberg interacting with the world, I realised that his stardom was sort of a result of the movies he had done and the publicity that he had got and the work that he did.
Success, in my view, is the willingness to strive for something you really want. The person not reaching the top is no less a success than the one who achieved it, if they both sweated blood, sweat and tears and overcame obstacles and fears. The failure to be perfect does not mean you're not a success.
One thing I always want to clear up was the notion that I 'took time off to have a baby.' A lot people leapt to that conclusion because becoming a parent happened to coincide with film roles tapering off.
There are some times when I have to take off the manager hat and be a father. And sometimes I have to take the father hat off and be a manager. And just to balance of that - and I'm not perfect so I make mistakes with that.
One thing I see in a lot of coaches is they try to live through the fighter. You can't live through the fighter. You gotta allow the fighter to be the fighter, and do what he do, and you just try to guide him. Why should I have to live through a fighter, when I went from eating out of a trashcan to being eight-time world champion? I stood in the limelight and did what I had to do as a fighter. I've been where that fighter is trying to go.
[Russel Crowe] has been through a lot and had a lot of success. No one knew who he was when I worked with him 12 years ago. He's just come off a great film in Australia- Romper Stomper - and so it was good to see him again. Obviously, I'd seen him since.
Oh, I love ladies in hats! One rule of restaurants: never take a hat from a lady; wait for her to offer you the hat because she might not want to take it off - she might not have had time to do her hair properly.
I have more perspective now, and am happier now. It's not that I don't want success, but I now know I can have success at a lower level and make much more money doing it by myself. I make $6 or $7 bucks a record vs. nothing off those other records.
I overcame a lot of obstacles in my life and in my childhood.