Ape antics help Mark move on

There's an unintentionally amusing moment in Planet of the Apes. When Mark Wahlberg turns to chimp heroine Helena Bonham Carter and vows, "I will show you something that will change your world forever", audience titters are induced not by the scenario, but absolutely from the knowledge that Wahlberg once played a man with a 13-inch penis.

He may have starred in Three Kings and The Perfect Storm; he may now be battling belligerent monkeys; but, no, it's still 1997's Boogie Nights they all come back to.

"I'm very proud of that film, but it's not the one I want to be remembered for," Wahlberg chuckles. "It changed my life in a lot of ways, some of which I could do without. It's always weird when guys follow you in the bathroom and try to check you out. (He mimes someone giving a furtive sideways glance at a urinal.) It's like, 'Come on guys. Give me a break'."

In Boogie Nights, Wahlberg's role as an amply-trousered porn star was something of an allegory to his own rise - kid from the wrong side of the tracks finds stardom; bad-boy rapper Marky Mark turns A-list film star. Exuding a quiet, dumbstruck machismo, Wahlberg is often described as the new Steve McQueen.

In Planet of the Apes, he's stepping into Charlton Heston's size nines. In his next film, a remake of Charade, he did enough to convince film-makers he could swan around Paris essaying Cary Grant. Wahlberg laughs: "I'm trying to remember who it was who said that I was nothing but a bullshit artist."

Today, amid the genteel surroundings at the Dorchester Hotel, Wahlberg could con anyone - resplendent in white dress-shirt, gold collar-studs and immaculately creased black trousers. Were it not for his prison-yard physique, you might venture his sensible short back and sides had been combed by his own mother, perhaps with a last minute spit-wash to make him presentable. He's got the manners too. Softly spoken, attentive, polite.

Though it doesn't sit quite right. On close scrutiny you can see it. There, around his neck is a tattooed rosary, culminating in an inked crucifix between the bulging pecs which strain at the stitches. There are other etchings lurking beneath, usually airbrushed out of photos. On his left shoulder is a profile of Bob Marley. On his right are inscribed two sets of initials (his parents'), and a date: 6-5-71 ("You know, in case I forget my birthday"). Here is an actor who'll never be able to knock five years off his age.

Marking time is important to the 30-year-old. Lest we forget, his adolescence, in a rough Boston neighbourhood (Dorchester, ironically), included a spree of drug-dealing and car theft which saw him - aged 16 - spending 45 days in a state penitentiary for vicious assault. His travails were enough to jolt him in the direction of more gainful employment - first with band Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch (riding on the coat-tails of brother Donnie's New Kids on the Block); then, famously, as the official face - nay "lunchbox" - of Calvin Klein underpants (both sexes of the fey fashion world going into a flap about this ex-con, posing in his knickers).

Wahlberg is still embarrassed about that episode, but claims such opportunities got him out of the gang mentality for good. "The most courageous thing I did was to stand up and say, 'I'm not gonna run with you guys'," he says. "Once I did that, everything seemed to fall in place." You can take the kid out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the kid."

For all the "ridiculous amounts of money" (his words) - he got $10 million for Planet of the Apes - Wahlberg still lives close to the old turf. Indeed, he really does still share a house with his mum (and pays her rent, too), leaving for Hollywood only to earn a crust.