Donald Edmond Wahlberg, Jr. (born August 17, 1969) is an American singer, actor and film producer. He is a member of the popular 1980s and 1990s boy band New Kids on the Block and is the older brother of fellow actor/musician Mark Wahlberg. His background includes music, feature films, and television. Donnie has been notably recognized in his roles in the Saw films, Boomtown and Righteous Kill, additionally acting in the award-winning World War II miniseries Band of Brothers. He usually plays police detectives in movies.

He was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, as the eighth of nine children, with older siblings Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, and Tracey, Michelle, Debbie (died 2003 of cancer at age 44), and younger sibling Mark. He also has three half siblings from his fathers first marriage, Donna, Scott and Buddy. His mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly), was a bank clerk and nurse's aid, and his father, the late Donald Edmond Wahlberg,Sr. was a teamster who worked as a delivery driver; the two divorced in 1982. He has mostly Irish, and some Swedish and French Canadian ancestry.

Wahlberg began performing in plays as early as the first grade. In high school, he attended a theatre arts program and became involved in theatre, acting, writing, and directing plays.