Earlier this week, Tom Cruise sparked a minor media outrage, after quotes he gave in a deposition in his libel suit against Bauer Media seemed to suggest that the actor felt that being away from his daughter on long movie shoots was analogous to serving in Afghanistan. Of course, it was eventually clarified that those quotes were taken out of context—clarified by TMZ, who took the quotes out of context in the first place, then put them in a giant headline—and that, obviously, Tom Cruise does not truly believe he is constantly fighting a grueling war for the fate of the world, at least not one involving humans. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop the story from becoming something of a PR disaster—one that, like so many other disasters, Mark Wahlberg could have shut down right away, if only he’d been there to stop it.
During a post-screening Q&A of his new film Lone Survivor, in which Wahlberg portrays real-life former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, Wahlberg scoffed at a question regarding his training for the film—as well as any actor who might pretend their training even comes close to what real soldiers experience.