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Did Jack Nicholson refuse to wear Red Sox hat in 'The Departed'? 'Jack can do whatever Jack wants,' Mark Wahlberg says

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 10/6/21

Wednesday is the 15-year anniversary of The Departed's arrival in theaters Oct. 6, 2006.

Directed by Martin Scorsese, the undercover cop thriller won four Oscars, and Mark Wahlberg was nominated for best supporting actor for his role of Sgt. Dignam.

The 50-year-old actor shared one scene with Jack Nicholson, who played mob boss Frank Costello—the Irish gang infiltrated by Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) for Boston police.

"It was a lot of fun, a lot of fun working in Boston," Wahlberg, a proud Bostonian, told Yahoo Entertainment back in 2014, as the interview surfaced for the film's milestone Wednesday. "A lot of fun working with Jack, even though we only had that one scene together. We played golf a bunch together and had been buddies for a while."

When asked about Nicholson, a New York Yankees fan, refusing to wear a Red Sox hat in the movie, Wahlberg responded, "Jack can do whatever Jack wants. It's Jack, baby."

Prior the film's release, in August 2006, Nicholson addressed the matter himself with New York Magazine: "First of all, they wanted me to wear a Red Sox hat, but I said, all things being equal, I don’t want to. My Yanks, they came before the Lakers, of course. But Kristen [Dalton], my inamorata in the picture, she wore a Red Sox cap both to subtly indicate domestic conflict and to politically mollify the fans in Boston."

The Departed's star-studded cast also included Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon and Martin Sheen.

At any rate, having no intel into Nicholson's personal life, the three-time Oscar winner is likely hurting after the Yankees lost to the Red Sox 6-2 in Tuesday night's American League wild-card matchup.

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