Actor Mark Wahlberg feels the spirit of hometown Boston for Patriots Day
With John Goodman and Kevin Bacon in key roles, the Hollywood star teams up again with director Peter Berg in a story of real-life bravery following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing
Mark Wahlberg worried how his hometown crowd might react when he signed to star in and produce a movie about the Boston Marathon bombing.
The Dorchester neighbourhood native was sure he had a profound story to tell. But the 2013 tragedy, which killed three and injured 264 others, was still raw when he attended a Boston Celtics game two years later at TD Garden.
When his face flashed on the big screen, “people started going crazy,” Wahlberg recalls. “They started chanting ‘Boston Strong!, Boston Strong!’
“It was amazing,” he says. “Seeing that obviously reaffirmed my instinct of just how important it was to tell this story. And that it was just as important for me to be the guy to do it.”
Wahlberg and director Peter Berg would go on to unveil Patriots Day on December 21 last year in Boston, New York and Los Angeles, casting light on the marathon finishing-line bombings by homegrown, radicalised terrorist brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Patriots Day focuses on the real-life heroes who emerged from the events that transfixed the nation, from injured spectators such as newlyweds Jessica and Patrick Downes (played by Rachel Brosnahan and Christopher O’Shea) to the authorities who worked together during the 105-hour manhunt to arrest Dzhokhar (Tamerlan died after a shoot-out), including FBI special agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) and Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman).
