Mark Wahlberg talks 'The Gambler,' pardon with Sandy Kenyon

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Mark Wahlberg is back on the big screen, garnering acclaim for his role in "The Gambler."

He sat with with entertainment reporter Sandy Kenyon to talk about the experience.

As "the Gambler," Wahlberg has a lean and hungry look that was the result of going hungry for real, losing more than 60 pounds to play the part.

"Not eating, being on a liquid diet for weeks and weeks at a time," he said.

But that's not all Wahlberg lost to get into character. He also dropped $45,000 gambling while in China filming the next "Transformers" movie.

"I hit for huge money," he said. "I took all the money, all the chips, walked right to the roulette table, put it all on black. They're going, 'What are you doing?' Lost it all right away."

Luckily for him, he didn't suffer much because the rich guys who gave him the money to gamble could well afford to lose it.

The film "gambler" is born wealthy and has a double life as a college-professor, unlike the actor, who dropped out of high school and says those scenes were the hardest.

"I was nervous," he said. "Could I be believable as a literary professor?"

The movie comes out after the star and family man made a decisive move to put his troubled past behind him last month, seeking a pardon a quarter century after he pleaded guilty to assault.

One of his victims responded by forgiving him.

"(It) was a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders," he said. "This is something that I've regretted for many, many years, 27 years, almost, to be exact. I've had to spend a lot of time and worry, guilt about what I thought had happened to him."

Wahlberg was 16 at the time and says he was arrested after trying to steal two cases of alcohol from a man outside a convenience store.

He says he hit the man in the head with a wooden stick, then ran down the block to avoid the police. He encountered another man man, who he punched in the face. He was tried as an adult and served 45 days in jail.

The victim, Johnny Trinh, has said that Wahlberg was young and reckless at the time, and that everyone deserves a second chance.