By Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa
January 14, 2007

Is it an homage to little bro Mark Wahlberg, or does “Kings of South Beach” star Donnie Wahlberg just want to show off his abs?

Either way, the Dorchester homey, who stars in the new A&E film about the underbelly of Miami’s nightlife, will strip down to his - yes! - Calvin’s in a scene for the flick scheduled to debut in March.

So, Donnie, is the Calvins thing a coincidence or inside joke?

“I thought about it; I’m not going to say I didn’t think about it,” Wahlberg told the Track. “But that was the time when everyone wore Calvin Klein underwear. The period of this film, in the 1990s, took place two to three years after Mark’s Calvin Klein campaign. So my underwear fit - no pun intended. I figured some people will get a kick out of it.”

The flick, which also stars Wahlberg’s “Boomtown” co-star Jason Gedrick, is the true-life story of Brooklyn wiseguy Chris Troiano, the club promoter who made South Beach into a night-life mecca, until an undercover cop - who also happens to be his best friend - takes him down.

Wahlberg plays the cop, Andy Burnett, and the stripping scene occurs because Gedrick’s character wants to make sure he’s not wired. (The real-life Burnett is the technical adviser for the film.)

Wahlberg said he’s psyched to be working again with Gedrick, whom he calls “a George Clooney, only his ‘ER’ hasn’t come in yet.”

Both Gedrick and Wahlberg have been waiting for a TV hit for some time. Donnie’s last series, the CW drama “Runaway” was canceled after just four episodes.

“It didn’t shock me,” he said. “In this business nothing shocks me. You just don’t know. A new network, they’re going to obviously try to find their legs. I’ve worked on the biggest networks and have been totally bewildered by some of the programming choices I’ve seen.”

But Wahlberg said he’s content to be patient and wait for his big break.

“Matt Damon is someone whom I respect tremendously, but his career wasn’t moving along at a great clip at one point and then he did ‘The Bourne Identity’ and everything changed for him again. To me, he deserves tremendous success because he’s great. But it took a movie that might have been a risk for him and his ‘taste’ - an action film - to reinvigorate his career.”

Donnie is about to take matters into his own hands - careerwise. In addition to taking a role for eight episides in Spike TV’s Pittsburgh-set drama “The Kill Pit,” he’s executive-producing a pilot based on his experiences growing up in Boston during the busing crisis.

“It’s based loosely on my family and experience in high school,” he said. “It’s about being a kid who was bused to school in Roxbury and how he sort of not only survived that but thrived in it. It’s about how it shaped me and made me the right person to take advantage of the opportunities that showed themselves to me when they did.”

We assume he means becoming a boy-band superstar with New Kids on the Block.

Wahlberg says he hopes to film the show - if it’s picked up - in Boston.

“If I don’t shoot it there I’ll be tremendously disappointed,” said the Boston Celtics superfan.

File Under: Beach Boy.

Originally appeared at: Boston Herald