Mark Wahlberg wasn’t a stranger to Halle Berry when they began working together in The Union!
In the upcoming Netflix romantic action thriller, the two veteran actors play a pair of ex-lovers who reconnect over a pretty extreme mission. Wahlberg wasn’t going into unfamiliar territory as he and Berry already have a friendship, making the work easy.
“It was so easy,” he tells ET’s Denny Directo during a training session alongside Berry. “I was a big fan for a long time and we’ve been friendly for a long time but we haven’t had a chance to work together.”
In the film, Wahlberg plays Mike McKenna, a man who has settled on his life in his hometown of New Jersey. After a night with his high school ex-girlfriend, Roxanne Hall (Berry), he believes there’s a shot for reconciliation. While he may not be wrong, it comes with a level of CIA training and a mission that sees Mike (a nobody) falling into the world of The Union, to help save American spies.
“This is about a guy who’d do anything to impress the most important woman in his life,” Wahlberg says. “He basically made it 25 years, still at home, still hanging around the same places waiting for her to walk through that door.”
When it comes to working with an ex, Wahlberg echoes Berry’s sentiments, with a strong “No.” Still, he believes fans could live out that dream through his character.
“They live vicariously through my character so there’s always that. I think, for the character, he always felt like they had just taken a break,” he says about Mike and Roxanne. “It’s always gonna have another opportunity, at least he was hoping that would happen.”
He adds, “Even though you may have had a couple of other part-time relationships, there was only one person who hits hard. And that’s her character.”
Speaking of hitting hard, when it came down to training for the film, Wahlberg stuck to his daily 4 a.m. start time. For Berry, that didn’t work, leaving her to do her training without him. Their time together did reveal a fun fact for the actress.
“He goes hard,” Berry says about her co-star’s time in the gym. “He does go to bed early. Fun fact, I didn’t know that about Mark Wahlberg.”
The Union premieres Aug 16 on Netflix.
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