Wahlberg wanted to honour the military dead

Mark Wahlberg was standing on a hillside in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when he got the affirmation he craved for his new movie.

It was the final day of location work on a 40-day shoot for Lone Survivor, an experience the actor describes as the most arduous of his career.

But Mark knew nothing he could be put through on a movie set could come close to matching the real life or death ordeal of the man he was playing.

Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell was one of the initial party of four SEALS whose mission was to capture a leading al-Qaida operative who had been spotted in a remote village.

Mark said: “When we wrapped on the last day Marcus was standing right beside me and I just looked at him and he said, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much how it went down,’ recalled the 42-year-old. “I had this terrible knot in my stomach thinking about what he went through and how difficult it must be to see it replayed in a movie.”

The hill in Albuquerque was replicating one in Afghanistan where on June 28, 2005, 19 US servicemen lost their lives. Eleven of those were Navy SEALS, making it the worst day for the Special Forces unit since the Second World War.

Their operation was compromised when they stumbled upon three goat herders in the hills overlooking the village. Protocol dictated they release the civilian non-combatants but they knew it would be only a short time before their presence was made known to the Taliban fighters who had taken over the settlement.

So began an intense firefight which resulted in the death of Luttrell’s three colleagues and the downing of a Chinook helicopter sent to rescue them, resulting in the deaths of a further 16 military personnel.

“I always feel some weight when portraying somebody in real life,” said Wahlberg, who previously earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role as boxer Micky Ward in The Fighter and also portrayed American footballer Vince Papale in Invincible.

“I want to make sure that I make them and their family members proud. That was especially so on this movie and I think everybody there knew we were making something unique.

“I loved speaking with Marcus about his relationship with those guys, because it always made him feel good to talk about how much he loved them, how much they loved him and how tight they were.

“I don’t like war, but I love soldiers. They’re not the guys who decide if they’re going in or not, they don’t really care. They have a job to do and they go and they do it.

“Would it be nice to live in a world without it? Absolutely. I don’t want any of these guys to go over there and risk their lives but that’s what they do. That’s why we made this tribute to all of them.”

Mark is joined in the cast by Incredible Hulk star Eric Bana, Into The Wild’s Emile Hirsch, John Carter star Taylor Kitsch and Ben Foster, soon to be seen playing Lance Armstrong in a biopic of the disgraced cyclist.

They were united in their determination to give their all to the project which involved committing to some Navy SEAL basic training and doing many of their own stunts.

“The SEALS were on set so you had this immense pressure to stand up and be a man,” said Mark, who must have felt a long way from his days as a Calvin Klein underwear model and as one of the founding members of boy band New Kids on the Block.

“There was no room for sensitivity up on that hill. You can cry like a baby if you want out of relief at the end of the day, but during the day we just did what was required. The falls and all that stuff, if it meant bumps and bruises, so be it. We wanted to make it feel real.

“Originally it was going to be a big budget movie, so you would have had cables and green screens, but we did the movie for a much lower price and I think that’s why it feels so intimate and authentic.”

As Mark revealed, sometimes that could be a little too authentic for comfort.

“The first stunt man to do the cliff jump in the movie landed at the bottom of the cliff and went right on to a stretcher and off to hospital.”