LOS ANGELES – Mark Wahlberg has a few lines of Mandarin dialogue in his latest film, the action comedy The Family Plan 2.

But the American actor spent months memorising those sentences so he could do them justice and not “embarrass myself”, he tells The Straits Times over Zoom.

Now streaming on Apple TV, the movie is a sequel to 2023’s The Family Plan, which saw suburban father Dan Morgan (Wahlberg) go on the run with his family when his past as a covert assassin catches up with them.

In The Family Plan 2, he and wife Jessica (Michelle Monaghan) fly to London so they can spend Christmas there with daughter Nina (Zoe Colletti) and sons Kyle (Van Crosby) and Max (Peter and Theodore Lindsey).

But they have to flee once again when threatened by Finn (Kit Harington), a mysterious figure from Dan’s past.

And when the family makes a pit stop at a Chinese restaurant in the British capital, Dan has a brief conversation in Mandarin with an old contact.

Asked how hard it was to memorise those few words compared with the French and other languages his character also rattles off, Wahlberg, 54, says: “Very difficult”.

“Thankfully, my friend Zach was my Mandarin teacher...