By Tomika Anderson, Special to CNN
(CNN) — “The Departed” star Mark Wahlberg is going back to high school later this month, courtesy of a new online program based in New Orleans.
The Boston native revealed his academic plans on David Letterman’s “Late Show” Monday night, when he stopped by to plug his upcoming film, “Ted,” with Mila Kunis.
The 41-year-old, who quit high school in the ninth grade, is an ambassador for Taco Bell’s Graduate-To-Go program.
“It’s an actual diploma,” Wahlberg said of his online program. “I’ve got to take up all the courses that I missed and I’m a little nervous.”
“They’re going to give me whatever credits I already have, which is probably like one or two,” he joked about the school’s plans to get him up to speed. “But I’m going to make it happen.”
Seeing that he has “a lot of downtime on sets in the trailer and stuff,” the actor hopes to “just … blast through it – hopefully do it within six to eight months.”
But there’s one project that doesn’t seem like it’ll happen nearly that fast: Wahlberg’s proposed basketball movie with Justin Bieber. Wahlberg has indicated the film will be similar to Martin Scorsese’s classic “The Color of Money,” which starred Tom Cruise and Paul Newman. Bieber would reportedly play Wahlberg’s mentee.
“The Bieber movie? I saw 115 pages,” Wahlberg told MTV recently of the script’s slow-cooked development. “Just waiting — I want to send it to them once it’s perfect.”
But in the meantime there’s Wahlberg’s latest, “Ted,” which arrives June 29.
