Nelly Furtado repeatedly slapped her "first celebrity crush", Mark Wahlberg" until he was "red" in the face.

The 'Promiscuous' singer made a brief appearance in 2008 action movie 'Max Payne' - in which the 53-year-old star played the titular detective - and not only was she feeling flustered at the thought of meeting her idol, her lack of acting experience made her unaware she didn't have to get violent during rehearsals.

Speaking on the 'Handsome' podcast, she said: "It's a short scene but I'm at a wake and my husband has just died and it's kind of Mark Wahlberg's character's fault, so I'm really angry at Mark Wahlberg in the scene. I don't remember the character's name... Was he Max Payne?

" Anyways, I'm in the scene, we're at a fictional wake, there's a lot of extras, there are a lot of people, I've hardly acted before and I am feeling the pressure.

"I'm like, 'Mark Wahlberg is about to walk on set' and not only do I have lines with him, I have to slap him in the face.'

"Because I'm a novice -- I'm a singer, I'm not an actor -- I actually thought that I could slap him several times on the face to practice.

"So they're like, 'And, action!' And I'm like, whapaw, whapaw! And his face is getting red and he's so nice, he doesn't say 'You don't have to really practice the slap.'"

"So I'm there just slapping Mark Wahlberg. Meanwhile my 14-year-old self is like, 'Oh my God!'"

And Nelly admitted she had difficulty crying during a serious scene but fake tears got her through the moment.

She said: "I barely got through the scene. But I made it happen."

The 46-year-old singer - who has 21-year-old daughter Nevis with her ex-partner Jasper Gahunia, as well as a six-year-old daughter and five-year-old son with Odd Future rapper Jerry aka Hodgy - told the story as she recalled her teenage crush on Mark during his days as pop singer Marky Mark.

She said: "When I was about 13 or 14, I had a poster of Mark Wahlberg's Calvin Klein ad.

"I had Marky Mark when he was all about the Calvins.

"He was my first celebrity crush, I think."