Q&A: Mickey Rourke

He shows Hollywood how it’s done in ‘The Wrestler’

By John Hood

Posted December 15, 2008

Special to Metromix

By now you’ve heard that Mickey Rourke, the scrappy, Hollywood bad boy, received a Golden Globe nomination for his role as Randy “The Ram” Robinson in Darren Aronofsky’s brutally keen “The Wrestler.” You may also have heard that he was nominated alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. That puts him back on the “A” list, where some say he’d never return, but many more insisted he belonged.

Like, for instance, director Darren Aronofsky, who struggled to get backing for the film as long as he had Rourke in the lead, but still fought to keep him in the role. Or Bruce Springsteen, who came through with a hauntingly beautiful title song, and then gave it to the movie gratis. Or any one of his co-stars, from Marisa Tomei (also nominated for a Golden Globe) to Evan Rachel Wood (who should’ve been), who both delivered performances of depth and nuance, and made Mickey look like the leading man he’s always been.

Okay, so he’s not your conventional idea of a leading man, but that in no way diminishes Rourke’s ability to carry a movie. We caught up with the comeback kid in the middle of a shoot out in Hollywood.

Congratulations on the Golden Globe nomination!
Thanks!

Did you go out and celebrate?
No, no. It’s still a long road to hoe. Actually I’m working on a new movie now called “13.”

Isn’t that with Jason Statham?
Jason Statham, a great actor. Ray Winstone, another great actor. Sam Wiley and Curtis Jackson—50 Cent—are also in it.

That’s a dynamite line-up. What’s the premise?
They’ve got these guys who’ve got this casino in Long Island somewhere—these real rich high rollers—and they go around snatching people up from different places: they get one guy out of an insane asylum, one guy out of a jail, they kidnap some busboys, they get some junkies off the street. And then they take them to this big mansion where all these gamblers are and they bet on them playing Russian roulette.

Ouch! Are you one of the ringleaders?
No, no. no. I’m one of the guys they snatch up. They actually bond me out of a Mexican prison.

I know you train a lot, even on your down time, but you must’ve done some extra training to make it around the ring in “The Wrestler,” no?
We trained for about six months down in Miami, 2 or 3 times a day. I had to go from 192 to 235.

Some of those moves you make are nuts!
It was pretty insane. We had wrestling rehearsal for four months, three hours a day, and then, you know, building up the muscles took probably close to seven months.

That’s some serious working out…
Actually the best thing in the movie for me was working with this young actress Evan Rachel Wood, who plays my daughter. She’s probably the best actress I ever worked with.

She’s that good?
Yeah, yeah. She’s one helluva actress.

Wasn’t there some kind of rumor that you guys were “hanging out”?
A rumor’s a rumor. You know how rumors are.

Right. What’s up with that movie “Killshot” [which co-stars Thomas Jane, Diane Lane and Rosario Dawson and has been sitting on the shelf awaiting release for two years]?
I don’t know what’s going on with that. I think somehow they fucked up the ending. They hired an actor at the beginning who really sucked and they started cutting his part out. Then when they cut it out completely, the ending didn’t make any sense. So they ended up with their finger up their ass.

What about another movie you’ve got coming up, “The Informers”?
“The Informers” is a very interesting movie. It’s an ensemble of a bunch of different people. I worked with a really, really great young actor who unfortunately OD’d three weeks after we finished the movie—Brad Renfro.

All your scenes are with him?
Yeah, all of ‘em. Then there’s a whole ensemble of actors besides us.

After you received the Golden Globe nomination, was there a moment when you felt like telling people ‘I told you so’?
I look at it like ‘I was out of work for 13 years, I’m just grateful to have a second chance, to be working again.' You know, it could’ve gone either way for me, but I was very lucky. I got some help from a few good men—a really good priest and a really good therapist—and I was able to reevaluate what went wrong, and to understand why things went wrong. And then do the things I needed to make some changes.

You know, I read Pat Jordan’s New York Times piece, and I’ve got to say the guy really missed his mark on that one.
Don’t even go there. I think you know me pretty well, so you know what is and what isn’t. Other than that, I’ve got no comment.

Good idea. Let’s get on to cooler things, like, for instance Bruce Springsteen’s closing song for “The Wrestler.” How’d that come about?
Well, I was friendly with Bruce for over 20 years, and then we lost contact for about 13. When I got done with the movie I felt so good about it, and because it all takes place in New Jersey I wrote Bruce this long, personal letter. And, man, the guy got back to me about three or four months later, said, ‘Hey, bro, I wrote you a song.’ And he gave it to us.

Our budget was only 5 million; we couldn’t have afforded a Bruce Springsteen song. Then Axl stepped up to the plate and gave us [permission to use] “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” and Slash did separate guitar riffs on his own. The boys really stepped up to the plate for me.