For Marky Mark Wahlberg, growing up wasn’t exactly the drama-school adventure a lot of today’s Oscar hopefuls were lucky enough to enjoy. No, he dropped out in the ninth grade, and not because he wasn’t turning up or getting the grades: he was charged with attempted murder.

Mark Wahlberg and Denzel WashingtonMark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington in 2 Guns... surrounded by money

Now, aged 42 and with nearly a billion movies under his belt, Wahlberg finally has his high school diploma having taken online classes while filming his latest picture, 2 Guns alongside Denzel Washington.

"Denzel was always asking me what I was doing but I didn't want to share that information with him," Wahlberg explained. "Nobody knew, because I felt like I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch, so I didn't want to say that I was doing it until I actually finished it. What if I said I'm doing this and I didn't finish it?"

For Wahlberg, now that he’s got the damn thing, the sky’s the limit, and he’s ready to get more educational milestones under his belt. "It's also a huge sense of relief. I wondered, 'Why didn't I do it when I was there?' It's so much harder at 41 going back and trying to do all these difficult tasks," he explained.

"I would love to go to USC and study film. I don't want to become a veterinarian or anything, [I want to study] things that further my career and broaden my horizon." Next up for Wahlberg are a couple of bona fide humdingers: the true story of Marcus Luttrell in Lone Survivor and the not-so-true story of massive robots smashing things up in Transformers.

TransformersRobot action is coming up for Marky Mark.