As they began prep work on The Fighter, Wahlberg, Russell and Bale spent time with the Ward family, feeling it was pivotal to doing their story justice. Not only that, but they spent time in the Massachusetts neighbourhood of Lowell, where the Wards live.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I first saw the family,” admits Russell. “I thought they might be some very harsh people that I’d want to spend 10 minutes with. The fact is, the people are so unbelievably lovable. That’s what goes into the movie.”

Which isn’t really how Christian Bale remembers it. “There were a couple of times where we had to physically restrain Dicky from going in and landing one right on David,” he laughs.

“We had some initial interesting times when we were rehearsing in Mark’s house, where Mark very nicely put up Micky and Dicky and they actually lived at his house for some time.”

In the end, though, the family understood that certain artistic license had to be used in order to tell their story in a two-hour movie.

“David said right from the get-go that he wanted to make this as real as possible and that’s what he did,” says Micky. “He really listened to me and to Dicky and he was never afraid to try absolutely anything.” For Wahlberg, it was still just the beginning…