Mark Wahlberg Suffers Painful Injury on Day 1 of New Film

Mark Wahlberg had to fight through the pain to film his new movie Arthur the King. The actor, 52, revealed he suffered a harrowing injury during the first day of shooting the adventure drama, which is inspired by the true story of an adventure racer who accidentally befriends a stray dog during a 400-mile-long race across the Dominican Republic.

Because the film is based on a true story, Wahlberg told Entertainment Tonight that he wanted to “pay attention to the small stuff” and “look the part,” meaning he had to undergo a lot of training similar to that of real-life athletes who take on that kind of grueling challenge. “Unfortunately, I tore my meniscus the first day, so all my training went out the window,” Wahlberg added. “Then it’s basically just about getting through it. …So I got to understand the suffering a little bit more than I wanted to.”

Wahlberg revealed that he tore his meniscus, a piece of cartilage that acts as a cushion between the tibia and femur, on the first day of shooting during the second scene of the day. The actor rushed to the doctor, who warned him that not pausing production and taking time to heal could cause a serious injury, but Wahlberg decided ultimately to work through it and keep the film moving.

“I just felt like, you know, it took a long time to get the movie off the ground and we were in the middle of COVID, and if I had shut it down, I don’t know if we would’ve got it up and running again,” he told ET. “So I just kind of toughed it out and I found different ways of getting through.”

The Family Plan actor may be famous for his intense workout routines, but he told Men’s Journal in December 2019 that his training had led to injuries in his shoulder, elbow, hand, back, knee and ankle. “I won’t lie – the biological clock is ticking,” Wahlberg said at the time. He added, “I give it my best and do everything that I need to do to be prepared, and if it doesn’t work, it’s not for lack of effort. If I just show up and phone it in – like I’ve seen a lot of people do in the past – and then it doesn’t work, a lot of that is on me and what I didn’t give.”

Arthur the King hits theaters on March 15.