Mark Wahlberg grew up in a tough Irish American suburb of Boston and has the war stories to prove it. But his early years dropping out of high school and getting into trouble are long behind him and now he's one of the highest paid screen actors in the world. CAHIR O'DOHERTY reports from the press launch of his new film, The Happening.

THE hills are alive in M. Night Shyamalan's eerie new summer blockbuster The Happening, but it's definitely not with the sound of music. After years of industrial pollution and global warming, Mother Nature's in no mood to make nice, and so the body count skyrockets from the very opening scene.

Leading man Mark Wahlberg, known to a generation of teenyboppers as the pants dropping rapper/underwear model Marky Mark, is the film's surprisingly sensitive hero. Onscreen he's a tastefully dressed new man who prefers to reason with his opponents rather than just sock them on the jaw, a response earlier incarnations of Wahlberg the actor and Wahlberg the man might well have opted for.

Perhaps it's the flashy company Wahlberg's been keeping, or - as he says himself - perhaps it's his efforts to make up for the sins of his past, but there's no denying he's far less aggressive and in your face than he used to be, a change he ascribes to his deepening Catholic faith.

These days Wahlberg's become a close friend of modern day Hollywood rat pack leader George Clooney, and due to his starring roles in major hits like Boogie Nights and his work as a producer on the HBO hit series Entourage, Wahlberg's finally joined the leading ranks of industry heavies like Leonardo di Caprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson. It's still fast company, but he swears he's mellowed.

Moving on from his original bad boy image, Wahlberg claims he now attends church and prays regularly, reflecting the values of his Irish American mother Elaine Donnelly, and remembering the fate of other unfortunate kids who grew up in the same heavily Irish American Dorchester neighborhood he did, but ending up spending their lives behind bars.

One of nine children in his family, Wahlberg has finally made it to the big time, but he vividly remembers those who didn't. And so if there's one recurring theme throughout much of Wahlberg's work, it's his desire to portray the common man who never, ever gives up.

"I think Mike (Shyamalan) cast me as the hero in The Happening because of my strong faith," Wahlberg told the Irish Voice. "I think my character Elliot survives because he has so much strong faith.

"When we'd do a take Mike would say, 'That was great Mark, what were you thinking of?' And I'd reply, 'Jesus.' And he'd look at me and say, 'Right, well now we've got to do it again.' I couldn't understand that at all," says Wahlberg, laughing at his own eagerness.

In The Happening the threat facing humanity doesn't arrive from any of the predictable sources you might expect. Without giving the plot away, it turns out that ordinary people are quickly implicated when everything starts to go wrong. Then the film becomes a fast paced paranoid thriller about a family on the run from an inexplicable event that threatens their lives and humankind.

Wahlberg's co-star Zooey Deschanel (last seen opposite Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) has a less spiritual but still philosophical take on the film's message. "I think the movie raises questions and inspiring people to think about the issues we face in the natural world. That's why I wanted to get involved with it," she said.

Feel-good messages of hope and change were not on the menu when Wahlberg was a teenager back in Dorchester. In fact it looked like the only message was either escape or lose it all.

Back then Wahlberg was caught up in spiraling acts of violence and vandalism as an enthusiastic participant, and the arc of his life was heading toward a nasty conclusion.

By the age of 13 he'd developed an addiction to cocaine and glue sniffing. By 15 he was screaming and throwing rocks at African American kids and causing them serious injuries.

A year later he robbed a pharmacy high on the hallucinogenic street drug PCP, which has the same effects as LSD, but can be much more dangerous. Knocking one middle aged Vietnamese man unconscious with a stick, he left another Vietnamese man permanently blinded in one eye. His life was completely out of control and he knew it.

For his crimes Wahlberg was charged for attempted murder, pleading guilty to assault, and he was sentenced to two years in jail at Boston's Deer Island House of Correction, where he served 45 days. This stint cooling his heels and others after it finally forced him to wrestle with the direction his life was taking.

"I've been very fortunate to get out of Dorchester to see that that's not how the rest of the world thinks. I'm trying to make up for all the crap I did. Being raised Catholic is tough, man," he says.

His movie career has also provided him with another thing that life in Dorchester didn't - a precious avenue toward self-expression and also the chance to serve as a role model.

To underscore his commitment to the tough lessons of his hardscrabble past, he has even set up his own foundation to help at risk kids turn their lives around, establishing the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation in 2001.

Says Wahlberg, a father to two children and a third on the way with his fiance, model Rhea Durham, "To come from where I come from and accomplish the things I have is not something people expect. But I'm not doing it to shock them either. I just feel like to do something for somebody makes me feel better."

Playing a Philadelphia high school teacher when he was actually an early dropout himself, Wahlberg now gets to explore alternatives to the difficult path he was once on.

In The Happening he leads his family to safety when they hit the road. The theme of rescue is one that resonates strongly for him and he gives it one of his most heartfelt performances to date.

"In The Happening Mark's character is just a regular science teacher," says the film's director, M. Night Shyamalan. "He's not someone who figures it all out. He just realizes there are gaps between what human beings understand and the world around them. He struggles to find answers and do the best he can in any situation."

To research for the role - he was a high school dropout after all - Wahlberg spent a lot of time back on campus at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology in Massachusetts, going on field trips, and getting to understand both the students there and his role.

In the film it soon becomes clear that no one anywhere is safe from the attacks. A terrifying invisible killer is on the loose and it cannot be outrun.

It's only when Eliot begins to understand the true nature of what's lurking out there in the shadows that - the force that has been unleashed to threaten humanity - that he can find a sliver of hope that he and his family might be able to escape what's happening.

That message of renewal, of being given a second chance, echoes strongly for the actor.

"I believe that the audience will really identify with him and what happens to him the moment the disaster hits. Like his relationship to his wife, we are forced to refocus on what life's all about, and they find themselves understanding each other better and reconnecting."

The Happening opens nationwide this Friday, June 13.