Mark Wahlberg appeared at the AFI Festival in Los Angeles on Tuesday (12 Nov.) night, where his latest film, Lone Survivor, was given its festival premiere. An adaptation of Petty Officer Marcus Luttrell’s account of his July 2005 Navy SEALS mission in Afghanistan, director Peter Berg has created a harrowing and very real account of life on the front line, but as Wahlberg was keen to point out during his post-screening Q&A with Berg and Luttrell, it was in no way comparable to actually being out in the line of duty.

Lone Survivor
Wahlberg with co-stars Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch

Looking distracted for most of the Q&A session, allowing Berg and Luttrell to do most of the talking, he was put on the spot when Festival Director Jacqueline Lyanga asked him what the rigorous filming schedule was like. Wahlberg's response was a nearly five-minute rant in which the actor slammed any other thespians who complain about the difficulties they face in their job, and he was especially angry at those who say acting is more difficult than serving your country. His rant, although not directed at anyone whilst he was giving it, has cause a stir as people have put two and two together and gotten Tom Cruise.

What did Tom Cruise say about the armed forces?

"For actors to sit there and talk about ‘oh I went to SEAL training’? I don’t give a f*ck what you did. You don’t do what these guys did. For somebody to sit there and say my job was as difficult as being in the military? How f*cking dare you, while you sit in a makeup chair for two hours,” Wahlberg began his rant (via Entertainment Weekly). He continued, “I don’t give a sh*t if you get your ass busted. You get to go home at the end of the day. You get to go to your hotel room. You get to order your f*cking chicken. Whatever the f*ck it is."

"People talk about what do we do to bond the way that those guys bonded. We just knew what they did. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have to say a word to Emile [Hirsch] or a word to Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster…who’s my brother even though he’s the kind of actor who wants to continuously debate the debate and everything else…and I love him for it. I gave him half my salary…whatever I gave him…to do it because I knew how great he was and for us to be on that mountain together and in the end I could just look at him and it would break my heart knowing that that’s my brother and I may never see him again. But it just seems like so much more than that,” he went on, but his complaining wasn't over there.

“I’ve done the movies where I talk about…’God, I trained for four and a half years and I was The Fighter and f*ck all that. It really means nothing. I love Marcus [Luttrell] for what he’s done and I’m a very lucky guy to do what I do and I’m proud to have been part of it, but it’s just so much bigger than what I do. I love Pete [Berg] for what he did and how committed he was,” he said. “He would never let any one of us forget about what was important in the course of making the movie and whether it was Marcus or the other SEAL guys, if they saw something that didn’t ring true, I don’t care if it was going to be the biggest stunt sequence in the movie, they would cut, call bullsh-t, and grab all of us by the f*cking neck and say ‘no do it this way, and do it right and make it real’ and if you don’t it’s a problem. I was really proud to be a part of that.”

Could Lone Survivor be the film to beat at the Oscars?

He cooled off then, finishing his rant by saying,“I’m sorry for losing my sh*t. Don’t ask any more questions tonight.”

His director Berg then attempted to lighten the mood, grabbing Wahlberg by the arm and insisting that it had been a long night for the Lone Survivor team, to which a still-irate Wahlberg responded, “no, it’s just getting f*cking started. I’m going to find my f*cking second wind and we’re going to celebrate this f*cking movie. But don’t ask me any more questions.”

Lone Survivor is out across the US on 10 January and in the UK on 31 January.

Watch the trailer for Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor poster
The film is out next year