Wahlberg Cops To Silence

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Donnie Wahlberg, who plays a detective in the upcoming ghost movie Silence, told SCI FI Wire that the character will differ from the cop he plays in the current horror movie Saw II. "Sure, the same guys are involved, but give me some credit [as an actor]," he said in an interview. "I'm not going to make the same choices. I'm not going to be the same person. Silence is a supernatural psychological thriller. It's very different from Saw II."

Silence is being written by James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the guys who co-wrote the first Saw film. But Wahlberg said the resemblance between his two characters is only superficial. "Yeah, both of the characters are detectives, but in Silence I'll be much less intense," he said. "He's a lot more quirky."

In Silence, Wahlberg's detective character has a bit of TV's Columbo in him. "He's thoughtful, a bit off-beat, you might say," he said. "But he's not hung up on the fact that his son is trapped by this lunatic. I enjoyed spending the better part of a year with these guys working on these two movies. They're smart and creative guys. I hope that you'll see me in these two roles and won't even notice that they were both detectives and they are both me. I hope they're that much different ."

Silence centers on a man who is blamed for the murder of his wife, but who insists that a ventriloquist's dummy is to blame. To clear his name, he consults the ghost of an abused ventriloquist. The film is supposed to harken back to classic British Hammer horror films , Wahlberg said. The Lions Gate film is wrapped and is scheduled for release in early 2006.