Mark Wahlberg Reveals Scariest Part of Filming 'Deepwater Horizon'
“What was really sketchy is when they lit me and Dylan O'Brien on fire," he said
— -- “Deepwater Horizon” star Mark Wahlberg said he loved making the film and being able to honor the 11 lives lost in the horrific environmental disaster. There is, however, one thing that left him quite heated about the making of the upcoming movie.
“What was really sketchy is when they lit me and Dylan O'Brien on fire,” Wahlberg said of the Hollywood stunt on ABC News' “Good Morning America” today. “They lit us on fire, and I didn’t feel too comfortable with that. They put gel and stuff on you, but then, you know, they put some other fluid on you and then they light you on fire and then they walk away. And then the other guy goes and grabs his coffee and then he’s like, ‘Hold on a second. We ready to roll?’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m on fire. Roll!’”
The actor, 45, said he gets “banged up pretty good in this movie,” but it’s a small price to pay to do these real-life heroes they’re playing on the big screen justice.
“You always want to step up in movies like this or in ‘Lone Survivor,’ where the actual guys are there and they went through it in real life,” he explained. “So, you’ve got to try to make it as realistic as possible.”
Wahlberg took making the movie as realistic as possible very seriously. In the film he plays Mike Williams, who was “actually the last man off of the rig,” he said. “All the lifeboats were gone, everything was gone.”
Wahlberg invited Williams onto the set of the movie to help oversee the production.
“He’s somebody that I admire for many reasons, but he hates the term, ‘hero,’” Wahlberg recalled. “He says, ‘I was just doing my job. Doing what any of my other brothers would have done.’ He’s a pretty remarkable guy and I asked him to come and consult on the movie because we wanted to make it accurate and authentic. And we wanted to make sure he was there to make sure we were getting it right.”
Most importantly, Wahlberg wants the audience to realize 11 people lost their lives in the “Deepwater Horizon” disaster, and hopes this film will help bring their memory to light.
“Everybody knew about the environmental disaster, and it was horrific,” he said. “But what people failed to recognize, or at least what the media failed to acknowledge, I think to the point where it was deserved, was that 11 people lost their lives."
“That was overlooked and for me it was a big surprise,” he added. “Once I read the script and I read the New York Times piece, I was just shocked. I realize obviously a lot of people were affected, jobs were lost, the fishing industry was completely destroyed, but 11 people lost their lives. Other people can find other jobs and other means, but those people aren’t coming back. And we wanted to acknowledge them and their memory and honor them in a way that we felt they deserved and it was long overdue.”
"Deepwater Horizon" hits theaters Sept. 30.
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