Mickey Rourke Interview, The Wrestler

We go in the ring with the battered and bruised Mickey Rourke and discuss his resurrection as The Wrestler! MoviesOnline sat down with Mickey Rourke to talk about his new film, “The Wrestler,” directed by Darren Aronofsky from an original screenplay by Robert Siegel.  Evan Rachel Wood and Marisa Tomei co-star.

On the surface, the film is an archetypal fable of a downtrodden sports hero seeking one last triumph – but underneath, in the bones of the story, is a lean, rugged, Hemingway-esque parable about the struggle for honor, dignity and love among men and woman on the tougher side of life. “The Wrestler” had its North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and won the Golden Lion at the 2008 Venice Film Festival. Rourke was recently nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his amazing performance in the film.

At the center of “The Wrestler” is a galvanizing, physical performance that rips the steely layers from the steroid-shooting, iron-pumping, hard-fighting Randy “The Ram” Robinson to reveal the equally funny and touching core of the man underneath. Director Aronofsky explains, “I’ve been a very, very big fan of Mickey since ‘Angel Heart’ and I’ve often wondered what happened to him. Why is this great talent not being shown to the world? I also knew how challenging this role would be both physically and emotionally and I knew I needed an actor willing to make all the sacrifices to transform themselves into this character and I believed Mickey could do that.”

Yet no one could have predicted the extent to which Rourke would embody Randy, shedding – and at times literally shredding – his skin, in a performance so nervy and unguarded, so equally focused on beauty, wit and pain, so infused with the hunger for human affection, that it took the story to places even the filmmakers never imagined. The physical demands alone of the role would be quite extreme, for Rourke trained with real wrestlers, did all his own fight scenes and put on about 30 additional pounds of muscle for the role.

Rourke came to the fore in the 1980s as one of his generation’s most promising young actors, with acclaimed roles in such films as “Diner,” “Angel Heart,” and “Barfly.” But after running into his own hard times, Rourke quite nearly disappeared off the map. He recently made a return to the screen in Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s comic-book-come-to-life, “Sin City,” but it has been many years since Rourke has been in as complex and sympathetic a role as Randy “The Ram” Robinson.

Aronofsky personally approached Rourke in a meeting that convinced both men they were going to push each other to interesting places. Rourke says that it was Aronofsky himself, rather than the story, that sealed the deal. “He makes very uncompromising, innovative films,” says Rourke, “and the whole wrestling thing seemed like such a departure for him, that the idea of this New York intellectual guy delving into this world of blood and sweat really interested me. I knew he would bring a completely different perspective to this story.”
Mickey Rourke turns in an impressive performance in “The Wrestler” and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us:

MoviesOnline: You didn't bring your dog today.

MICKEY: No. Well, she's like 16 1/2 now. I've got to like pick and choose my time and place with her. She's resting upstairs.

MoviesOnline: We had a good time with her last time.

MICKEY: Yeah, she's an old gal now. She had a stroke and she's got what's called old dog syndrome. So I've got to be real gentle with her.

MoviesOnline: What attracted you to this project and how was it working with Darren Aronofsky?

MICKEY: Well, I think the main thing that attracted me to the piece was the fact that I had an opportunity to work with a really special director. In the years I've been working, I can count them on maybe four or five fingers, and I could put him right there, right at the top of the list, with Coppola and the rest of them, (Michael) Cimino, Adrian Lyne. I think guys like him come around every 30 years, and he's going to have a long, very distinguished career and break some new ground with the way he shoots films.

You know, what I like about him right now is he's not making movies to become rich. He lets his wife do that. He's very uncompromising. He has a lot of integrity, and he's smarter than the rest of us. I knew why he wanted me to do this part. I mean, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. But he really fought for me to do this role when he had a lot of resistance, and he kept fighting for me to do it. And then finally, I lost the part, and I guess even when I lost it, he kept fighting for me to do it. And it worked out.

I think the thing I was afraid of most is when I met him, he's very much an authority kind of figure. He's very direct. He's very uncompromising with everything in his life, I think. He likes to think of himself as this liberal, open-minded kind of person, but he's really the captain and he runs the ship, and that's just the way it is. And when he points his finger at you, he doesn't understand that going like this, that somebody may break it. And he didn't meet me 15 years ago, thank god. [laughs] If somebody said to me, "Do you think you could have given the same performance 15 years ago?" and I went, "Fuck yeah." And then when I thought about it, I went, "No. I would have told him to [fuck off], or kicked him in the ass," you know?

He just was smart enough and instinctive enough that when we had to do really hard scenes, or important scenes, emotional scenes like the one with Evan, he brought the best out of me in a certain kind of way that he spoke to me. And I had already, as an actor, made an inner choice in what I was using, and he didn't disturb that at all. But he would say little things to me to just raise the bar each take. And he said the right things, and he just surprised me, because I had thought I already delivered two takes that were gold. And then he'd come over, and he'd just talk to me in a way that maybe Vince Lombardi would talk to a player when he just needed like two more yards, "Just give me two more yards," you know? And I really enjoyed that way. It was competitive in a way. He challenged me in a way.

I remember one time I was at a boxing match and I was getting the piss kicked out of me, and I went back to the corner and Freddy Roach said something to me and slapped me in the face, and I was able to go back and take care of business because I had to. And with Darren, it's the same way. You got to keep moving forward. And you can only do that with a director if you trust him and you respect him. He just earned more and more trust and respect each day. And I think he felt that way about me, and I felt that way about him.

MoviesOnline: How was it working with Evan Rachel Wood?

MICKEY: When we were working with Evan, it just rubbed off, and she was already talented enough in her own right. To me, she's the best actress I ever worked with. Like I said, I didn't even know her name. We just did it. We introduced ourselves like a week or two later. I couldn't remember her name anyway.

MoviesOnline: What was the hardest part of the shoot?

MICKEY: The hardest part, really, was getting myself physically ready to pull off looking like these [wrestlers] because these guys are fucking huge. I weigh around 192 pounds, and to get up to 235 over a six-month period, it took a lot of work. So it started there, you know? I remember when it was, "Oh, we're going to work." I just felt like I did three movies in the gym, you know? And like I said, there weren't even chairs to sit in. The extras were like half of Darren's family from Brooklyn. It was that kind of shoot. Everybody was sweating and working 17 hours a day. And I remember waking up in the morning [after] getting like a 4 1/2, 5-hour sleep, because we were pushing, doing double turnarounds. I remember getting out of bed. I couldn't get out of bed until the trainer would pick me up, because everything just didn't work -- the knees and the back -- and getting out of bed feeling like I just got into bed. It was grueling. It was really hard, and it wasn't hard just for me. It was from the camera operator all the way down to Darren. Nobody really slept, nobody really rested, and everybody just worked their ass off for this guy.

MoviesOnline: You've overcome a lot of personal obstacles in your life. How does it feel to be back on top of your game? You've been mentioned for several awards.

MICKEY: Yeah. I mean, when shit started to happen for us in Venice, we didn't even have a distributor. I mean, I knew and felt we had something after like six days, but I didn't know it would go this far. [laughs] Then we went to Toronto, and people were really receptive and some reviews came out that were really [positive]. I wasn't really surprised at that. I think the thing that's kind of unreal is after like ten years went by and I wasn't working, you know, I thought, I really don't want to be in this business if I'm going to come in and work a day or two, you know, that kind of career. If I can't be the man, then I'd rather just go back to Miami and do whatever the fuck lands on my lap. And I think after Sin City, that kind of opened the door a little bit, and then this thing kicked the door down.

I'm really lucky to have a second chance, because I really misbehaved for 15 years really fucking badly. And I regret it. I just didn't have the tools to change at the time, and to really work and change myself outside, and work with somebody, get information on why I misbehaved and destroyed everything I worked so hard to do. I worked really hard to be the best actor I could be when I was at the Actors Studio. I think early on, with early success, that brought old wounds up, and I questioned my life and what happened in my life. And instead of feeling good about it, I was really angry about it.

MoviesOnline: Were there moments playing Randy where it felt uncomfortable?

MICKEY: Many. Yeah. It was one of the reasons when I was replaced early on where everybody was upset about it but me. Because when I sat across from Darren, I was looking at him and listening, and the monotone voice he has, and the way he looks at you. You can see how smart the guy is just hearing him. I knew he'd want his pound of flesh, you know? And I knew why he wanted me. And I thought, I'm going to have to revisit some really dark, painful places. I wasn't so much worried about the physical stuff as I was that, and then not getting paid to work so hard. I think I was relieved when I was replaced, because I thought, oh, let me just go do some half-ass movie, get paid ten times more than they're offering me on this. But there was the other side of my brain that went, this is a chance to work with somebody really good. I think there was a lot of the character in the movie that I kind of didn't really want to go there, you know, the closeness of it [and] the guy's desperate, sort of hopeless situation that he's in.

I remember when the movie was over, during my lost years, Springsteen and I were friends for 20 years, and I didn't even talk to him for like 13 years. I wrote him this letter, this long letter about how I had been lucky because I hit bottom, and then I was able to find someone to give me information why, and why these things happened to me, why I reacted, why the anger and the armor and the toughness and all that macho shit and the craziness and the being unaccountable and not worried about consequences -- why all that surfaced again. There were issues I had that weren't really about those, it was more about shame and I was hiding with the other thing, and I think the success made me just short circuit and hate being...I don't know, I hated stuff. I think I wanted to be taken care of when I was little, and not when I was an adult.

MoviesOnline: Would you say you're lucky to be alive now?

MICKEY: Oh, yeah. Due to natural circumstances or my own, fuck yeah. [laughs] I mean, thank god. But when I wrote Bruce's letter, I said in the letter to him, I'm lucky that I was able to meet a few good men to help me change my ways, and the change took place over a long period of time. And I wrote to him, how Randy doesn't have this available. So, I think when you hear the song, he got it. He got it all. And I think that's one of the reasons why he wrote the song for us. We couldn't afford to pay him. And we couldn't afford to pay Axl (Rose). And those guys stepped up to the plate for us in a big way.

MoviesOnline: Was "Sweet Child of Mine" your theme song?

MICKEY: Yeah, when I used to fight, I used to come out to that song. So, there was one day when I was getting ready to come out in front of this live arena, because we were shooting between live shows. I remember standing backstage, and I started going like this (reacting to the music). "Whoa!" It's not a boxing match. But it's got..."Fucking bring it!" Because in the dressing room, you're all nervous and scared, but when your music comes on, that's when you come out and you're not supposed to be afraid anymore. That's when the fun stuff starts.

MoviesOnline: Is acting kind of the ring for you?

MICKEY: Sure. Man, you know, I love competition. I used to love playing football in high school. I played with the same guys for 10 years. We played as a team, and it was competitive, you know? I don't want to lose a game by one touchdown or one point. I don't want to fucking lose at all, you know? I don't want to lose when I'm playing sports, and I don't want to lose when I'm acting. Darren's going to challenge me to bring it, and to be the best actor I can be. And I'm going to give him every fucking thing. I'm going to give him my fucking blood. I got no problem with that at all, you know? And people go, "Oh, it isn't competitive." It is competitive. I worked with actors that can competitively raise you to another level, because they're working off you. You can get some son of a bitch in there that wants to do something different, and then I'll just roll him up and smoke him like a cheap cigarette. So, either you can work together and bring each other up to another level, or you can do that other thing, and then I'll make toast out of your ass. So it's up to the other person, you know?

MoviesOnline: Have you spoken to some of the wrestlers who have seen the movie?

MICKEY: Yes.

MoviesOnline: What was their reaction?

MICKEY: Well, that was one of the big hoorahs we got. We went up to do one of them BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Q&A’s and Darren with his big mouth goes, "I hear Rowdy Roddy Piper's in the audience. Are you there?" And we hear a few seconds later, "Yeah, I'm here." And he looks at me and so then he goes, "We'd like to know...This is your world, and we hope we made a movie that depicts you in a way that you could...Did you like it or did you hate it? Do you have anything to say?" And there was a long pause. Darren looks over at me and he did that thing with his eyebrows. Darren's nervous. It's like when I took him to see Springsteen and he shit himself. You know, there's 85,000 people in Giants Stadium, and we go backstage to meet him. Darren goes, "I'm nervous, I never get nervous." And I go, "Shut up and come with me." And then Rowdy Piper went on to give us the highest compliments that anybody could give. I mean, man, it was like we made this movie and these are the guys we wanted to pay homage to, other than make a respectable movie. So Rowdy Piper and I and Darren, we met backstage, and he was very emotional about it, and he said some things about being at the other end of your career. You know, he's not in Madison Square Garden right now, and it's a really hard thing to hear.

MoviesOnline: Did you base your character on a specific wrestler?

MICKEY: Only the hearing aid thing was from a wrestler that I knew that my brother was friends with. We'd be in Gold's Gym pumping iron--we're talking 15, 16 years ago--and I'd say, "Magic..." (His name was Magic.) And I would joke, and my brother would go, "Bro, he ain't got his fucking hearing aids." [laughs] So I'd say something to him and I'd walk over, and I'd see Magic go... But he did it in both ears. He had one in each ear.

MoviesOnline: Are there any projects on the horizon that you're looking at taking on?

MICKEY: I've got one more day's work on this movie called “13” with Ray Winstone. Great actor. One of the reasons I'm doing it is the ensemble of actors who are in it. It's a remake of a French movie called “13 Tzameti” about all these guys playing Russian roulette [with] Jason Statham, who's a fucking great actor. I mean, he does The Transporters, you know, but if you see him in “Snatch” and these other movies, “London,” he's incredible. The ensemble's great -- Curtis Jackson, who's ‘50 Cent,’ Ben Gazzara. There is a really interesting young actor, Sam Riley.

MoviesOnline: Who do you play in this film?

MICKEY: It's not a character that's in the original movie. It's a character that he wanted to develop and we added. It's an added character. It's a guy who is from Texas who they end up smuggling out of a jail in Mexico because all the guys are in this ring, this circle who play Russian roulette. Ray Winstone's from an insane asylum, the other guy's from a jail, the other guys, two busboys they capture. And then you've got all these guys in there, 17 guys playing Russian roulette. And it's based on like the kid #13, Sam Riley's role, who's there by accident. And it's a
very interesting director, Gela Babluani. It's like I'm not always going to be able to work with Darren Aronofsky, so I said to myself, "So things don't go wrong again, I've got to work with people who have integrity and are very interesting, and smart, and want to cast the best people they can, and then I'm going to feel good about myself." I'm not going to go off and make “Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man” because they're paying me a whole bunch of money. I'd rather take a whole lot less money and work with really good people, or just not work at all.

MoviesOnline: Can you talk about when you first went into the ring in front of a crowd?
Because you did it in between...

MICKEY: ...in between real wrestling matches, yeah. I was shitting myself. I was 234 pounds of muscle, and I had to do this one scene where I flip over and do the scissors. And I hadn't nailed it in rehearsals. We got real close. And I wanted to do it because it was hard to do. My hands are pretty busted up from boxing, and they lock on me. So, I remember for that scene, I put extra tape on my hands and I took my kneepads out so I'd be a little lighter, because I thought, if I nail it, I'm going to nail it on the first take. Or, in front of all these people, I'm going to be falling down worse and worse and worse. And I hit in on the first. And it's a real hard maneuver, especially being 30 pounds heavier. I remember going, I've got to press down, I've got to jump. And I did it. And I'm more proud of that than anything in the fucking movie, really. [laughs] I looked over at Darren and I had a big smile on my face, so did he, and I go, "That's it, one take. Let's go. Move. I can't do that again."

MoviesOnline: Have you reached a place of peace with yourself now?

MICKEY: I'm getting there. I'm almost...I'm pretty much there, kind of, sort of. As much as probably I'll ever be. If that's the question, that's the answer: as much as I'll ever be. There's always going to be a war going on inside of me. That's just, I think, my make-up. It just gives me the fire to burn to keep moving forward. But a lot comes with the territory. I've just got to keep a lid on it.

MoviesOnline: What's the status of Sin City 2?

MICKEY: I have no idea about that. You'll have to talk to them confused people.

MoviesOnline: Did you watch the De La Hoya fight?

MICKEY: I absolutely did, and the right guy...The best trainer was in Manny Pacquiao's corner, and the best fighter kicked his [De La Hoya's] ass.

“The Wrestler” opens in theaters on December 17th.