Chicago Bulls guard Jimmy Butler woke up at 5 a.m. every day this offseason, and it’s all because of … Mark Wahlberg?
A Chicago Magazine profile published Monday revealed Butler has been good friends with Wahlberg since 2013, when the Boston-born actor filmed “Transformers: Age of Extinction” in Chicago. The two even have vacationed in Paris together twice, including a month-long trip this summer.
But it’s Wahlberg’s workout routine that really caught Butler’s eye.
“I just saw the way he got after it, the way he would train,” Butler said. “I was like, ‘You know what? That’s probably something a lot of people aren’t doing.’ Which is why I started waking up at 5 a.m. to start working out. He was doing it.”
Wahlberg is almost a father figure to Butler and told Chicago Magazine that he saw a hard-working “20-something-year-old kid” in Butler and wanted to keep him moving in the right direction. And that’s why Butler chooses to stay in, too.
“I told him, ‘Look, I was lucky,’ ” Wahlberg said. ” ‘I got it all out of my system when I was younger. When I was your age, I was not disciplined, but if I had been, I think I’d be a lot further along in what I’ve wanted to accomplish. If you don’t give it your all now, you’re going to regret it. You’ll look back on that time you wasted going out and having fun, spending all hours of the night out instead of all hours of the morning at the gym.’ He just got it.”
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@NBAcom
