Excerpt:
As an actor, what was it like working with Russell Crowe?
Wahlberg: We were shooting for five weeks before Russell came in and everybody was like, ‘What’s he going to be like?’ We had such a great energy and 
atmosphere on the set, and he showed up and had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. He had monologue after monologue and he just showed up, walked in the room and Allen said, “Do you want to rehearse?” He looked at me, I looked at him, and I said, “Let’s do this shit.” The great thing about it was, we had the ability because of the way it was written, to just go at each other. We were trying to out-do each other as characters, but not as actors and individuals. So it made for some really great duels, but in service of the movie and not necessarily for each other or the individual. He’s a consummate pro. He came in and just nailed it. It was nice to see somebody who’s as prepared as yourself. It’s like, oh, some people still do care, and they do take this seriously. For me, working with the best out there really gives you an opportunity to show what you can do, and they always elevate your game anyway. You’ve seen great actors in bad movies with bad material, it’s got to all work and click, and it’s all got to be on the page. Then you hope you get sprinkled with a little bit of that magical fairy dust on top from the movie Gods because it’s hard to make a good movie. Every project I go in, it’s never for lack of effort; sometimes they turn out good, sometimes they don’t.
