Mark Wahlberg: Justin Bieber has "it" as a dramatic actor

We won't predict any Oscars just yet, but Mark Wahlberg seems to think Justin Bieber's got it in him to be a serious movie star.

Wahlberg revealed to MTV the motivation behind casting The Biebs in an upcoming basketball drama.

"Intuition. I'm pretty intuitive," Wahlberg said. "I see the guy and spent time with him, and you see what he does and how he does it, and then you actually have a conversation with him, and it's there."

And what if it's not? Said like a true Belieber, Mark responded: "it's there — and if not, I will extract it". What an endorsement!

Details about the film are hush-hush at the moment, but a while back Wahlberg said "wait till you see me and Bieber in the flick", and likened it to the Oscar-winning Tom Cruise-Paul Newman 1986 pool-hustling drama The Colour of Money.

Bieber's team are apparently "working on the script", no doubt carefully priming the 17-year-old for a transition from pop phenomenon to young movie protege to one of the best actors and producers in the business.