Mark Wahlberg, who claims to know the identity of the Oscar winners
Mark Wahlberg, who claims to know the identity of the Oscar winners Reuters

Mark Wahlberg has claimed to know who will win at the Oscars on Sunday, courtesy of a friend at Pricewaterhouse, according to the Huffington Post.

Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is responsible for counting the Academy's votes and preparing the envelopes to be read out on the big night. Only two ballot leaders are supposed to know the identity of the winners.

But Wahlberg has stated confidently that The Artist will triumph in the Best Picture category, with its star Jean Dujardin also taking home the prize for Best Actor.

If we take him at face value, it appears that Wahlberg was given the full lowdown on the Oscar's bash. The Fighter and Contraband star also let slip that The Help will have a big night, with Viola Davis winning Best Actress and co-star Octavia Spencer prevailing in the Best Supporting Actress category.

In the best supporting actor category Christopher Plummer can expect to be celebrating a Best Supporting Actor award for his role in Beginners, according to Wahlberg.

Such is the 40-year-old star's apparent inside knowledge that his declarations even stretch to the awards' technical categories.

'Transformers' will win for best sound editing, and Hugo--they will win Best Costume, Production and Cinematography.

We may never know if Wahlberg's comments are genuine or a bit of lighthearted, if not brash, fun; the winners he has suggested are generally regarded as favorites in their categories.

Not that the American actor is any stranger to stirring up controversy with his comments, though. In an interview that appeared in the February issue of Men's Journal the Entourage executive producer said that he would have stopped the 9/11 attacks if given the chance.

If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did, he said, according to the New York Observer. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we're going to land somewhere safely, don't worry.'