Mickey Rourke

Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

The most fascinating thing about Mickey Rourke's performance in The Wrestler is that it's hard to know where the character ends and Rourke begins. Randy "The Ram" Robinson used to be a superstar. But he's been burnt out and left for dead for well over a decade now, with a slew of broken relationships and bitter memories in his wake -- and all he wants now is a comeback.

"The comeback thing has been a process for me over the past thirteen years," Rourke tells The Cinema Source. "Having to realize that I had to change was the big thing. I thought the change could take place over a year and a half or two years, but it took a decade."

After an incredible run of films in the '80s -- Body Heat, Diner, Rumble Fish, The Pope of Greenwich Village, and Barfly among them -- Rourke's career fell apart. Directors groused he was difficult to work with; he partied too hard; he turned down dozens of quality high-profile roles; in 1991, he even announced that he was quitting acting to become a professional boxer. He never did fully quit, and his boxing career didn't amount to much more than a few serious injuries.

"I didn't understand what it was to be a professional, to be accountable," Rourke says of his acting career in the '80s. "I didn't understand there would be circumstances and repercussions to my actions if my fuse was lit. I didn't care back then. It was a matter of respect and principle. But honor, respect, and principle can turn out, as I've learned, to be a weak thing instead of a strong thing. But where I came from, that's how the men are, and that's always the way I wanted to be. There'll always be that in me, but I just got to adjust it and behave, realize, you know, if I do this or say that, I could pay the price for it.

"Where I short-circuited was when I realized just how much of a business it is," Rourke continues. "It's so political. You can be mediocre and be a goddamned movie star, for crying out loud. There's a lot of gray in the movie business, and for some reason I was offended by that. I saw Pacino, and De Niro, and Walken and Kietel, and all these people who really gave a fuck about their work, and then you go out and start doing it and you realize, they just want you to show up and be a businessman."

Rourke worked steadily throughout the '90s, but by then it was in projects like Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and a slew of bargain bin titles like Point Blank and Another 9 1/2 Weeks. As the years wore on, he would occasionally he would appear in something that looked like it could start a comeback -- flashy supporting roles in The Rainmaker, The Pledge, and most recently Sin City -- but nothing that impressed Hollywood enough to reconsider him as a leading man.

Then Darren Aronofsky came along. He'd made a name for himself with the indies Pi and Requiem for a Dream, and he'd just had a bad experience with The Fountain and was looking to make something completely different. For the role of a washed up wrestler in need of a comeback, Rourke became his only choice.

"Fifteen years ago, I don't know if I would've gotten along with Darren Aronofsky," Rourke says. "I really doubt it. I don't know if I would've lasted a day with him. Because Darren is in your face. That's what I like about him, now. He is the captain. He sat there the first day we met, and he pointed his little pink finger at me and he said, 'You're going to do everything I say, you're going to do everything I tell you, and you're never going to disrespect me in front of the crew. ...And I can't pay you." And I went, well, he's not smart and he's got a lot of balls, so I want to work with this guy.

The problem was, even though Aronofsky believed in Rourke, no one else did. No production company would agree to finance the film. At one point, Aronofsky was even forced to replace Rourke with Nicolas Cage, before ultimately finding a French company that agreed to a five million dollar budget -- significantly less than what Aronofsky was asking for, but the best he could find.

"Darren decided to move into a documentary-style thing with handheld cameras to save money," Rourke says. "He took a big chance to do that, and he took a big chance working with me because everybody told him, yeah, you're making the wrong decision. I'm very grateful that he stuck by me."

With a budget set and Rourke onboard as the lead, his physical training had to begin.

"We had six months of weightlifting," Rourke says. "I walk at around about 192, and I had to get up to 230, 235. I never had to gain weight before; I always got to lose it, for sports or whatever. After putting 20 pounds on, it got really hard. I hired this Israeli cage fighter who was real strict with me, which was exactly what I needed. I didn't want a trainer who I was going to tell when I was going to work out. He was a man you respect, and he could also kick my ass."

The training never got easy. "Shit was getting dislocated. I think I had three MRIs in two months. Darren's screaming at me, 'You're only giving me fifty percent!' He didn't know that I blew out a disc, and I didn't want to tell him. I remember calling my agent telling him I didn't know if I could do it, because I was hurting pretty bad."

He winces at the memory. "I was afraid to go to a real doctor, because I don't like doctors, so I went to an acupuncturist, and a chiropractor, and everything but a real doctor, because I thought something was really wrong with me and I was afraid to find out. So finally I went to a proper doctor, and he said to me, 'You have a blown out L5, surrounded by arthritis.' And he gave me anti-inflammatories, and I was good in two days. So I should've done that instead of going through a month of hell."

Once he got in character, Rourke found pro-wrestling to be plenty different than boxing, or any other sport he'd ever tried. Not because the matches are staged -- but because of all the hard work that goes into it in spite of that. "They're entertainers and they're athletes. Which I didn't know. I didn't have much understanding of it before I started the movie."

Rourke was also attracted to the camaraderie between each wrestler. "They all pretty much get along and like each other. The ones that aren't headliners anymore are in their car 24/7, driving to different cities and small venues, and they really all get to know each other. They go to the same bars, they take the same steroids, they're banging the same chicks."

Spending so much time in their world, Rourke seems to have adopted their bravado. When asked how he feels about a potential Oscar nomination or win, he lays out a clear challenge. "If it's about the work, I know what I did. If somebody brings it, and they did a better job than me, then that man deserves it, whoever the fuck it is. I know what I did in my heart, so if somebody else brought it better' Then bring it."

When asked whether the emotional aspects of his performance took as much toll as the physical aspects, he nods, almost reluctantly. It was the physical and the emotional," Rourke says. "The speech at the end and that kind of crap that I could relate to. You know, it was kind of shameful, in a way. Nobody wants to admit that they screwed up so badly with their life, and you're left alone and yesterday's news. If you've been there, and I've been there, it's no picnic. Randy wants one more chance, and he ain't gonna get it. I've been lucky. I got another chance." ❏