Hi Everyone!

This article might hve been sent out already but I'll still send it in case
someone hasn't had a chance to read it...

Taken form NOW! Magazine issue April 9, 2003...

How acting and fatherhood have tamed the former wild man of pop and wh he
hasn't looked back since

I WAS WASHED UP AT 26

New Kids On The Block Star Donnie wahlberg was the Justin Timberlake of the
early '90s, but then it all went pear-shaped. Now he's back with a new
career - and this time he's determined to keep his feet firmly on the ground

Forget the Backstreet Boys and *NSync and Take That (and whle were at it,
please forget One True Voice). When it comes to boy bands, one group remain
supreme. In 1990 alone, New Kids On The Block generated over half a billion
pounds in record sales and became the first group ever to have eight UK Top
10 hits in one year.

They were the hottest property on the planet and while Jordan, Jon, Danny
and Joey all ahd their fans, they boy everyone wanted a piece of was Donnie
Wahlberg.

Donnie was the boy who was never out of trouble, the Boston brawler who was
as nifty with his fists as he was with his dance steps. He could have eaten
Liam Gallagher for breakfast and still had room for Noel.

However, 13 years is a long time in showbusiness and today Donnie's older
and wiser, not to mention considerabl more mellow. The guy who released his
first album at 16 and was eraning millions by the age of 21 now has little
or nothing to do with music.

Donnie Wahlberg the grown up is now a respectable 33-year-old family man and
a respected actor with a starring role in the critically acclaimed Channel
Five crime drama Boomtown. But he admits the New Kid tag is hard to live
down.

"I was the group's bad boy" he confesses. "It wasn't that I really was a bad
boy - more that I was very young. I grew up in the streets of Boston and
didn't understand the politics of celebrity very well - that people will try
to bait you into a fight so that they can sue you afterwards."

"I was smart enough to recognize what they were doing, but not smart enough
to walk away from it. Like I said, I was young and felt trapped by fame. It
wasn't a comfortable time."

It didn't help that, despite the band's success, they were never taken
seriously by the industry they made so much money for.

"We were a very big band and we enjoyed a lot of fame" he says, "but we
didn't have any respect. And we deserved it because we worked really hard.
These days I'm an actor and, while the amount of hard work and dedication I
put into my career hasn't changed at all, the response from other people has
changed incredibly. It's like a 180 degree turn."

Even so, he admits that when the group's success dried up in the mid-90's it
came as a shock. "I didn't know it was all going to be taken away. I was
used to living in a certain way. I'd go to Gap and buy 50 T-shirts, then
only wear them once because I didn't like the feel of a Gap T-shirt after it
had been washed. It wasn't that extravagant - not like Michael Jackson
buying million-dollar vases - but it was a quirk I allowed myself."

"So when that ended, I was lost. It's like a kid graduating from high school
and not going to college. You've spent 12 years doing the same thing every
day and now it's over. You just think "Where do I go now". I wrestled with
that for a bit."

Eventually he started to pick up the pieces. "I became honest with myself
and realized I really didn't want the fame and that I'd had it with music. I
wanted to try something else."

"I'd always had a love of acting and spent four years at a high school with
a wonderful theater program in Boston, where we performed plays every two
weeks. I loved it. So I decided to be an actor, just got mysefl an agent and
hit the streets."

That's when Donnie got his second shock. Despite being a household name, he
had no reputation as an actor and the level of interest was minimal.

"It was a very painful, difficult transition" her recalls. "The band had run
its course - we were washed up and swept under the rug - and no one was
looking to give me a handout role. I went about 18 months before I had any
work at all."

"Looking back, that was for the best. I now know you have to earn your keep
in life and whatever success I've achieved has been though hard work, so I
appreciate it a lot more. I'm as grateful as any actor to get a job."

He hasn't had to worry about work for a while now, though. A small role in
the 1996 thriller Ransom led to a cameo in the 1999 Bruce Willis film The
Sixth Sense, which in turn led to the role of Lt Lipton in the award-winning
TV series Band of Brothers. He's also about to be seen in the latest Stephen
King chiller Dreamcatcher.

With a laugh, Donnie says right now his biggest complaint is that making
Boomtown takes him away from his family for too long. Kim Fey, his wife of
four years, is a recording engineer and they have two sons Xavier, nine, and
Elijah, 18 months.

"One of the reasons I was attracted to Boomtown is that it's shot in LA,
where I live." he says. "I thought I'd spend more time with them, but that
isn't always the case."

Does he ever miss the old days of worldwide adultation? "Not at all. At the
Band of Brothers premiere I saw two guys from *NSync and they had about five
bodyguards with them. I don't miss that. There are a lot of perks with being
in a hot band, but there's a lot of excess, too."

"I'd rather be living the life I have now than walk out of my front door in
my underwear to pick up my morning paper and have 10 girls screaming at me.
I had a good time then, but I'm happier now. I like where I am and I
whouldn't change a thing."

The article is written by Gabrilelle Donnelly.

There are five pictures included. One of Donnie alone, one with him and the
group (caption: Donnie, far left, earned the "bad boy" tag during his days
in chart-topping band New Kids On The Block), the third one with him and
Mark (caption: Both Donnie and his brother Mark have put their music career
behind them in favor of acting), the fourth one Donnie and Kim (caption:
Donnie and his wife Kim Fey have two sons Xavier and Elijah) and the fifh
one (caption: Donnie plays a cop in the hit TV series Boomtown).

I hope you enjoyed the article....

If you have a webpage and want to put it up, be my guest. :-)

Also... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANNY! Can't forget that either...

Okay.. Enough talk and I'll get this email on it's way...

Love,

Päivi

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