Mark Wahlberg Talks His Own Gambling and Losing Weight for ‘The Gambler’

“The Gambler” is coming and Mark Wahlberg has begun to push the film, due out December 19, that some say may result in an Oscar nomination. 

Wahlberg lost 60 pounds for the role.

"I felt miserable, like my character,” he said before a group of reporters this week. “Not a happy camper. I love food. I like exercising, but I like exercising when I'm eating properly, and having to exercise twice as hard as I've ever done without eating was pretty much a nightmare. But, you know, that's what Rupert and those guys wanted to do, and they had a specific look in mind . . . I was like, fine."

So is Wahlberg himself a gambler?

Not exactly.

"I'm not really interested in gambling. I like the fact that this character just uses that as a specific tool to strip himself of all his material stuff in his life and try to get back to nothing and see if he can start over. But I'm not big into gambling. My dad was a gambler and not very good at it — although he won $1,500 and put a down payment on a house that we lived in and owned for a short time. But I only gamble when I know I can win: when I'm playing basketball with friends. Or golf."

- Jordan Bach, Gambling911.com