Calling Mister Wahlberg

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By Newsweek Editors

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You can call him an exrapper, or a former Calvin Klein model, or an aspiring actor. But please, please don't call him Marky Mark. ""I'm growing up,'' says the ex-rapper, former model and aspiring actor, now 23. With much of his hunkitude and energy devoted to making movies, he wants to be taken seriously. That's why he's using his real name, Mark Wahlberg, for his dramatic role in ""The Basketball Diaries,'' opening next month. Based on the 1978 autobiography of poet and former junkie Jim Carroll, ""Diaries'' is the raw tale of a bunch of Roman Catholic high-school boys on a downward spiral through drugs and crime. Wahlberg does a fine job as Mickey, the toughest kid. ""I could play that part in my sleep,'' says the former underkind. The youngest of nine children, Wahlberg is also Catholic and grew up in the inner-city Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. ""I had basketball dreams, too,'' he says. ""But I had to face reality: I'm only 5 feet 10.''

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