Donnie Wahlberg

From the Boston suburbs of Dorchester to the big screen, Donnie Wahlberg has forged a formidable showbiz career as a singer, actor, public speaker and film producer.

At age 15, Wahlberg joined the singing group New Kids on the Block, and in a few years went from playing at high school parties to becoming a pop music sensation. In 1990, he scored a hit on the Top 100 with “The Right Combination,” a duet with Japanese pop star Seiko Matsuda.

After New Kids on the Block broke up in 1994, Wahlberg focused on writing and producing for his younger brother, Mark Wahlberg who at the time was best known as the leader of the hip-hop band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Both Wahlberg brothers soon began successful careers as actors.

Wahlberg's first film appearance as an actor was in the 1996 film Bullet with Mickey Rourke and Tupac Shakur. Also in 1996, he appeared as a kidnapper in Ransom with Mel Gibson. Wahlberg received attention for his role in the 1999 film The Sixth Sense, playing the patient of Bruce Willis's character in the opening sequence. This role was originally intended for a 13-year-old boy until Wahlberg met with writer and director M. Night Shyamalan to inquire about obtaining the rights for a theatre production and ended up getting the role.

In 2001, Wahlberg costarred as “First Sergeant C. Carwood Lipton” in the television miniseries Band of Brothers. He also starred in the 2002–2003 NBC drama series Boomtown as “Joel Stevens,” a Los Angeles police detective. Graham Yost, executive producer and writer of Boomtown, had worked with Wahlberg in Band of Brothers and was so impressed by his performance that he wrote the role specifically for him.

2003 was also the year that Wahlberg starred alongside Timothy Olyphant and Jason Lee as the mentally challenged “Duddits” in William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan's adaptation of the Stephen King alien-invasion thriller, Dreamcatcher. In 2005, Wahlberg starred as “Detective Eric Matthews” in the second installment of the Saw series. He reprised the role in Saw III in 2006 and Saw IV in 2007. In 2006, Wahlberg played “Lieutenant Commander Burton” in the military/boxing drama, Annapolis. Later that year, he played the lead role in the short-lived television drama Runaway on The CW. In 2007, he starred alongside Jason Gedrick, Ricardo Chavira, and Nadine Velazquez in the television movie Kings of South Beach on A&E. That same year, he starred opposite John Leguizamo on the television series The Kill Point.

In 2008, Wahlberg appeared in Righteous Kill costarring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. He also costarred in What Doesn't Kill You with Ethan Hawke, Mark Ruffalo and Amanda Peet.

In the spring of 2008, New Kids on the Block reunited. The band released The Block in September and toured the world. They recently wrapped up their second tour “Full Service.”