Ten Things About... Mark Wahlberg

"Back when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark..." Eminem reminisced back in 2000. With his pornstar role in Boogie Nights and Oscar-nominated turn in Martin Scorsese's The Departed under his belt, Mark Walhberg is rightly considered one of the most solid actors in Hollywood these days. But, as he stretches his comedic muscles in new Will Ferrell flick The Other Guys, we spill the beans on the man who once proudly stood alongside a group of chaps named The Funky Bunch - including the wonderfully-monikered Hector the Booty Inspector.

1. Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg was born in 1971 in Dochester, Boston as the youngest of an incredible nine children.

2. Wahlberg was one of many who recently sent their regards to new prison inmate George Michael, but his words may have held more weight than most. As a 16-year-old, he served 45 days of a two-year sentence at Boston's Deer Island House of Correction after half-blinding a Vietnamese man while allegedly under the influence of PCP

3. Those days were behind him by the summer of 1991, when the newly-rechristened Marky Mark hit the top of the Billboard 100 with his Funky Bunch and 'Good Vibrations'. Like every press shot from the era, the video to the track features a topless Mark slinking about while wearing a gold chain. "I'm the anti D-R-U-G-G-I-E my / Body is healthy / My rhymes make me wealthy / And the Funky Bunch helps me," he swore.

4. That track was co-written and produced by Mark's older brother Donnie, who recently reunited with his colleagues from the paradigm-shifting boyband New Kids On The Block. Talk is that NKOTB will join the Backstreet Boys for a full US tour next year.

5. So drugs were off the menu, but how about some sex with the rock 'n' roll? "When I was a rapper the groupies didn't have to try too hard with me - just show up at the hotel," he revealed in 2001. "Now I have actors' groupies. Well, movie star chicks. They're groupies but they want to go out with you. They want to be photographed with you holding their hand. That's why I've never done it."

6. Giving the people what they want, Mark stripped down to his pants again for Calvin Klein in 1993. "Save the strange behaviour for the kids with dawdy drawers/ I drops mine for the cause," he rapped, as a topless Kate Moss gave him a cuddle. "If I just wear regular briefs they get stretched out," he boasted. "I've had lipstick stains on my underwear a few times." Ooo-er! "She kind of looked like my nephew," he later said to Nuts about Moss. Miaow! "I mean she's beautiful - she's a very pretty nephew," he added, which I doubt softened the blow!

7. If you look at those YouTube vids really close (ahem), you might be able to spot Mark's nubbin. Yup! Mark has a third nipple just a few centimetres before his normal left one. For those wanting to show off, the posh word for it is a supernumerary nipple.

8. Mark married his long-term partner Rhea Durham in August 2009 in a private Catholic ceremony - and their first date was in a church! "We met through a mutual friend in New York," he explained. "I asked if she wanted to hang out the next day and she did, so I said, 'Well, come to church with me'." The couple have four children together.

9. A fine turn as off-the-rails kid Mickey alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries hinted that Mark had found his calling as an actor, but it was his starring role in P.T. Anderson's Boogie Nights which really convinced us. "I have the Boogie Nights prosthetic," he said years later about Dirk Diggler's sizeable appendage. "I keep the thing in a safe. Otherwise, mum would think it was something she could hit a robber with someday or she'd put it on the end of her Dustbuster thinking it came with the vacuum cleaner."

10. Mark is an executive producer on hit HBO show Entourage, a fictionalised satire of his years in the movie biz. Asked if he was ever tapped for stories by the writers, he told the New York Post: "Yeah, here and there. There's nothing I'm going to own up to. They also take liberties and take from other people's experiences in the business and try to come up with cool and interesting stuff. It's all pretty realistic as far as Hollywood goes."