As The Sixth Sense prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary later this year, Donnie Wahlberg is opening up about working with the movie’s lead star Bruce Willis, who is battling frontotemporal dementia.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight‘s Nischelle Turner, Wahlberg said that Willis was “so cool to me” while working on the hit film. “Bruce was so supportive. He just had my back,” he shared. “It was a great thrill to work with him and get to know him.”
Wahlberg talked about the one scene they filmed together, which saw his character, Vincent Gray, shoot Willis’ Malcolm Crowe before turning the gun on himself.
“I was watching him, and as out of my mind as I was on that day, I was like, ‘He’s so technical. He hits his mark, and then he goes to the emotion,’” the Blue Bloods star recalled. “He was just so helpful and supportive.”
Willis offered that same support during the premiere of The Sixth Sense, hugging Wahlberg and telling him, “‘You did so good. You did so good. You really helped the movie.’”
Wahlberg said that this support from the Die Hard star helped with his self-confidence. “If he hadn’t supported me, I don’t know that I would have had that confidence,” he shared. “I don’t know that I would be here right now. That’s how impactful it was… It meant the world to me, and then to see how humble he was through all of it was just very impressive.”
The New Kids on the Block member also recalled the struggles he went through for the Sixth Sense role. He lost 47 pounds to play the part of the troubled patient, who had an intense relationship with his psychiatrist, Malcolm.
“I spent five weeks suffering and starving myself and doing all this stuff. It was really hard, and it probably took me a year or two to get back to my right mind,” he explained. “Not that I was dangerous or anything, but what I went through to change physically, starving myself, I think I had a little bit of an eating disorder for the next two years.”
“I thought about every time I ate. I was like, ‘Oh, I can only eat this much,’ and I would like run to the gym after having a regular meal,” he continued. “I just kind of wasn’t myself. I really went through such a transformation for that part that it was really difficult for me to come back.”
These days, Wahlberg is happy playing Detective Danny Reagan on the CBS police procedural Blue Bloods, a role he’s played for 13 seasons and counting. The actor said he’s “so grateful” for the show and how the cast and crew have become a family.
“Growing up, I dreamed of somehow making my way to be able to do things that I love to do and to be doing it after all these years and having so much fun doing it; I just feel so blessed and so grateful,” he added.
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Blue Bloods also opened up the opportunity for Wahlberg to host his own crime show, the Investigation Discovery series Very Scary People, which looks into the twisted lives of diabolical criminals, such as Charles Manson, Aileen Wuornos, and John Wayne Gacy.
“On Very Scary People, my job isn’t so much to investigate or do any of that; it’s really to just present… the information and then let the people close to the story, the people who were involved, the families and all those people, tell the story because they know it better than anybody,” he explained.