When Mark Wahlberg and his siblings get together, it’s all about family time.
Wahlberg, 53, recently touched on how he and his eight siblings — including Debbie, who died in 2003, Michelle, Arthur, Paul, Jim, Tracey, Robert and Donnie — approach family gatherings while speaking with PEOPLE about his new thriller Flight Risk.
“We don’t really get into it that much. I think when we’re getting together and spending time together, it’s really just about quality time together as a family,” he says, when asked if he and his siblings take the time to review each other’s work. Donnie, 55, is well-known for his acting and music with the boy band New Kids on the Block; their brothers Jim, Robert and Arthur have also worked in film and television over the years, and Paul appeared alongside Mark and Donnie in their reality television series Wahlburgers in the 2010s.
“I think there was more of that before, but now it’s just like… I think we’ve all gotten to an age where it’s like, life is too short,” Mark adds. “We gotta just enjoy each other’s company as often as possible. And I got over criticizing my siblings after my early forties.”
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Mark and his siblings grew up in Dorchester, a neighborhood in Boston. Their mother Alma Wahlberg worked as a bank clerk and nurse’s aide while they were kids, and their father Donald Wahlberg Sr. worked as a delivery driver. Alma died in 2021 at 78, and Donald Sr. died in 2008.
Mark now lives in Las Vegas with his wife Rhea Durham and their four kids: Ella, 21, Michael, 18, Brendan, 16 and Grace, 15. His brother Paul operates the Wahlburgers restaurant chain, which originated in Hingham, Massachusetts, and Robert still lives in Dorchester.
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Mark shared with PEOPLE back in June 2024 he expected his family to get a kick out of seeing his shaved-head look in Flight Risk.
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“I think this they’re gonna see it in a theater,” he said of his family’s plans to screen the thrilling new film, which also stars Michelle Dockery and Topher Grace. “But this is the perfect movie to see in a theater anyway, because you’re interacting with the screen, you’re yelling, you’re screaming. You’ll probably grab some stranger next to you when something crazy happens.”
Flight Risk is in theaters now.
