Actor: Mark Wahlberg

Mark Wahlberg was a rapper and underwear model before Boogie Nights, in which Paul Thomas Anderson cast him as a young man whose only asset is physical, and the performance is far more vulnerable than anything since.

He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Departed, playing a detective whose entire function is aggressive contempt, and he gets the last shot of the film.

The Fighter, which he produced and spent years developing, is the passion project, and he is deliberately the least showy performer in it.

He has a criminal record from his teens including a racially motivated assault, which he has addressed publicly with varying success, and produces extensively.