Mark Wahlberg Pays Tribute to Burt Reynolds: ‘Rest in Peace to a Legend and a Friend’

Burt Reynolds passed away at age 82 on Thursday, Sept. 6, and the actor has since received an outpouring of tributes on social media.

Mark Wahlberg, who starred with Reynolds in 1997’s Boogie Nights, used Twitter to share his own post honoring the late star, sharing a photo of the two acting in the film.

“Rest in peace to a legend and a friend,” Wahlberg wrote, adding the hashtag #BurtReynolds.

Boogie Nights earned Reynolds a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a porn director, and helped elevate Wahlberg’s career after his turn as a young man-turned porn star.

In an interview with Andy Cohen on SiriusXM in November 2017, Wahlberg said that he thinks his co-star should have won the Academy Award for his role in the film.

“He should have definitely won the Oscar,” Wahlberg said, adding that despite its critical acclaim, Reynolds never seemed to be a real fan of the movie.

“He didn’t get the movie, he didn’t understand it,” Wahlberg noted. “Here’s a guy who was the biggest box-office star for over a decade and all of a sudden he was doing something that I think he felt was a little dirty and low. And I was like, ‘No, Burt, this is special.’”

“Even when we saw the movie at the New York Film Festival, he was like, ‘I don’t know why they like this movie, but let’s just pretend we like it too,’” Wahlberg recalled. “I was like, ‘I love this movie, I think it’s fantastic.’”

Speaking to The Guardian in 2015, Reynolds said he had still never seen the entire film and that he “hates” the movie.

He also revealed that he was not a fan of the subject matter on which the film was based.

“I don’t like those people, I feel like they are due for a very hard time because they tried to do legitimate film and they’re never going to be able to,” he said. “It’s sad, they were very sad people and they showed up a lot of times on set. It’s a one-way street, if you go down that road as an actor, you’re finished.”

Photo Credit: Getty / Michael Tran