{"id":606922,"date":"2026-04-14T20:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/606922\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T20:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T20:10:09","slug":"mark-wahlberg-talks-losing-his-boston-accent-on-kimmel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/606922\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Wahlberg talks losing his Boston accent on \u2018Kimmel\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making the media rounds for his new comedy \u201cBalls Up,\u201d Mark Wahlberg<\/a> stopped by \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d<\/a> on Monday night to chat about the film, as well as his deep Boston roots.<\/p>\n

The late-night host took the former Funky Bunch star on a trip down memory lane, sharing a photo of a 20-year-old Wahlberg with his older brother Donnie and \u201cThe Fresh Prince of Bel-Air\u201d actor Will Smith from a 1991 \u201cMTV Rock N\u2019 Jock\u201d appearance. Kimmel proceeded to play a video from the basketball game, with Wahlberg noting that he won the event\u2019s dunk contest. However, the Dorchester native seemed to cringe a bit hearing his \u201cvery thick\u201d Boston accent<\/a> from back in the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing worse than hearing that accent,\u201d Wahlberg told Kimmel. \u201cI spent a good long time trying to get rid of the Boston accent, only to then go and do movies like \u2018The Fighter,\u2019 \u2018[The] Perfect Storm,\u2019 \u2018The Departed,\u2019 all these movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actor revealed that he commiserated with his fellow Bostonian and \u201cThe Departed\u201d costar Matt Damon about how their accents would be perceived by fans, since they were the only Bay State stars in the film. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe and I were the only ones actually from Boston, but we were kind of looking at each other like, \u2018I think people are going to think that we have the fake Boston accents,\u2019 and we\u2019re going to stick out like a sore thumb,\u201d said Wahlberg.<\/p>\n

Later in the interview, Kimmel put Wahlberg\u2019s Boston bona fides to the test in a skit called \u201cWheah ya frahm?\u201d that involved the star picking Bostonians out of a lineup on the street, but without getting to hear them speak (since the Boston accent is pretty noticeable).<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a good chance,\u201d Wahlberg said before kicking off the bit. \u201cNow there are very, very different and specific types. There\u2019s quite a few different types of Boston folks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In the first group of pedestrians, Wahlberg asked if any of them had ever gotten drunk on a duck boat, with a man wearing a green jacket named Dave the only one to nod yes to the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told ya, he\u2019s from Gloucester,\u201d joked Wahlberg, who correctly identified that the man was from Massachusetts (the contestant revealed that he \u201cused to take the commuter rail from Foxborough\u201d). For his efforts, Dave received three bags of clams as his prize.<\/p>\n

In the next group, the Bostonian was pretty obvious, as a man named PJ wore a Dunkin\u2019 outfit and was the only one who picked white clam chowder over the red version when Wahlberg asked which type was better. PJ turned out to hail from East Boston, and received Wahlburgers coupons as his reward.<\/p>\n

The final group was a bit more challenging, as a woman named Taylor and a man named Scott both gave very Boston answers to questions like \u201cIf someone yells, \u2018Go Yankees,\u2019 what hand gesture would you make?\u201d (Taylor and Scott both flipped the bird), and picked Larry Bird over Michael Jordan in another query from Wahlberg.<\/p>\n

For his final question, Wahlberg asked if any of them had ever gotten into a first fight with a relative. Again, Taylor and Scott gave the same answer, nodding yes, but Wahlberg ultimately made the correct choice, selecting Taylor as the Bay Stater in the lineup (she revealed that she\u2019s from Beverly), with the show giving her a Red Sox cap filled with baked beans as the final prize.<\/p>\n

Matt Juul can be reached at matthew.juul@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Making the media rounds for his new comedy \u201cBalls Up,\u201d Mark Wahlberg stopped by \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[4891,9716,295308,295312,22438,64,63,447,134,1689,361,295310,11013,2022,295309,2822,15460,8212,295311,112276,5429],"class_list":{"0":"post-606922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-4891","9":"tag-actor","10":"tag-american-culture","11":"tag-arrival","12":"tag-arts-culture-and-entertainment","13":"tag-au","14":"tag-australia","15":"tag-celebrities","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-film","18":"tag-film-industry","19":"tag-film-premiere","20":"tag-horizontal","21":"tag-london","22":"tag-london-england","23":"tag-mark-wahlberg","24":"tag-movie","25":"tag-photography","26":"tag-premiere-event","27":"tag-red-carpet-event","28":"tag-uk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}