Mark Wahlberg Calls Fellow Calvin Klein Model Jeremy Allen White One of Many ‘Worthy Successors’ (Exclusive)

Former Calvin Klein underwear model Mark Wahlberg approves of the brand’s latest ambassador.

In January, the company released a campaign featuring The Bear Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White, and Wahlberg, who was featured in advertisements of his own in the early 1990s, tells PEOPLE the actor is “absolutely” a worthy successor.

“There’s been many, many worthy successors,” Wahlberg adds. Other stars who’ve stripped down to their skivvies for Calvin Klein include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Justin Bieber and Kellan Lutz. 

The Arthur the King star says he’s also a fan of White’s acting work — and is hoping to work with him, too. “I think that guy's really talented,” he continues. “So we're sending him a script — a cool story that we think he'd be great for.”

As for Wahlberg himself, he says he’s choosier about what projects take him away from his family these days, especially after last year’s SAG-AFTRA strike, which allowed him to spend more time with his loved ones for four months.

“The one blessing was it allowed me to be with my family,” he says. “You get used to being at home.”

He, wife Rhea Durham and their four children Ella Rae, 21, Michael, 17, Brendan, 15, and Grace, 14, relocated to Nevada two years ago, and he’s hoping to start working in his backyard.

Last year he lobbied local lawmakers to give tax credits to movies that shoot in the state, and he wants to see a studio built nearby. “Hopefully,” he says, “we’ll be able to make movies [here].”

He largely shot Arthur the King in the Dominican Republic. The heartwarming drama is based on the true story of adventure racer Mikael Lindnord, who bonded with a stray dog while trekking through Ecuador.

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Though Wahlberg is quite fit himself — as anyone who sees his workout videos on Instagram can see— playing a real-life adventure racer was a challenge.

“Getting through the physicality of the movie, the running, the cycling, the trekking through the mud, even just getting to some of the locations were extremely difficult,” he says.

He did many of his own stunts, including a segment where he ziplines over a steep ravine.

“I remember coming back from a trip home, and the first day I was back I just walked up on this platform and I hadn't seen the zip line before, and they were like, ‘All right, you're going to go out with the cameraman,’” says Wahlberg.

“And I was like, ‘What?’ I hadn't seen anybody else do it, and I hadn't been on it yet, and that was pretty nerve-racking,” he admits.

Arthur the King is in theaters Friday.

For more on Mark Wahlberg, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE.