"I resisted change. I didn't know how to change, and I didn't think I needed to change. But now I know different, and I have no problem being accountable. I can go as far as I want to go, if I stick to the rules. I tried to beat the system, and I got the shit kicked out of me. I don't recommend my way to anybody."
Mickey Rourke's voice is low and soft, but there is an unmistakable intensity to his words. He looks you in the eye when he speaks, occasionally grabbing your arm or shoulder to pull you closer to make his point. His face is weathered and beaten — literally, he spent years as a professional boxer — but it's not hard to see the movie star still in there, the face that commanded the big screen in the 1980s in films such as Diner, Angel Heart, and The Pope of Greenwich Village. In that decade he was living beyond his means, with the "expensive house and the big overhead" and "taking movies I had no respect for" to fund his lifestyle, he says. "It was all happening so fast. I went from movie to movie pretty quickly. And then I crashed."
But in Hollywood everyone loves an underdog, and Rourke has come blazing back. After well-received turns in The Rainmaker and Sin City, the 52-year-old actor signed on to play the title role in The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky's brutal drama, by Robert D. Siegel, about a retired grappler lured back to the ring for one last match. The film caused a sensation when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, winning the Golden Lion Award for Aronofsky. But because the rules prevent a movie from receiving more than one, Rourke did not win the best actor prize, prompting jury member Wim Wenders to say, "I will never be on a jury again."
At that moment, Rourke realized their little film was having a big impact on people. "He stepped up to the plate for me and went to bat for me in a very courageous way," he says of Wenders. "Even though I didn't get that particular award, in my heart I got it." It was particularly affirming considering he didn't even know Wenders. "I met him only once before, on an audition," Rourke says. "And I didn't get the part."
Pinning It Down
Rourke has always been a fighter. He has been boxing since age 12, going professional in 1991 after giving up acting. So it's strange to think he could be intimidated by anything, let alone an audition. In the early 1980s, he came close to landing a big role — he won't say which one — but froze at the callback and began shaking. "One of my contemporaries got the part, and I realized if I had just been a little calmer, it would have been mine," he says. "I went home and looked in the mirror and said, 'Never again. Never again will you get nervous going out for a part. Because if I do, I'm going to have to deal with myself and be miserable.'" He takes a beat. "That was the day things changed."
Rourke talked at length with his New York acting teacher, Sandra Seacat, and devised a plan to take control of auditions: "I became focused on going in with my character, not making small talk with the casting people, because it's very intimidating to think about the 15 other people in the hallway going out for the same job. It's easy to lose your concentration. I would say, 'Let's go right into this and chat afterwards.'"
It worked. Casting director Wallis Nicita auditioned Rourke and wanted him immediately for a small part in Body Heat. "I think I was bouncing in a transvestite nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard at the time, so I was pretty glad to get out of there," the actor says. "That was my first big break, and I just kept going." He takes another beat. "Then it stopped." Rourke chews on this before saying simply, "I misbehaved terribly."
He became known for battling with directors, showing up late, and provoking fights on and off the set. He is more than willing to talk about why he behaved so badly — he tells of a difficult childhood that left him with severe abandonment issues and feelings of shame and insignificance. "I'm a proud guy, and I built up a physical strength and mental armor that turned out to be a weakness," he says. "Back then there were no rules, and I didn't understand that it's a business and you have to be professional. It's part of being an actor; I just didn't want to deal with it."
Rourke left acting and returned to boxing for five years. About seven years ago, he hit rock bottom. "I was living in a $600 apartment," he says. "I had just sold my Mini Cooper because I couldn't fill it with gas, and I was living off $200 a week a friend gave me for food, which can buy you a lot at McDonald's. Nobody really knew how far I'd fallen. It was shameful."
Rourke wanted to get back into acting, and a neighbor who worked in casting asked if he had an agent. He didn't, and she set up a meeting for him with David Unger at ICM. Rourke recalls, "He said, 'Everybody at my agency thinks your career is over. I don't know if I'll be able to take you on, but I believe in you.' We made each other some promises, and he's kept all of his, and I've kept most of mine. But I would not be here today if this kid didn't roll up his sleeves for me the way he did. And I have to tell his boss, Jeff Berg, thank you very much for not firing him or sending him back to the mailroom for wanting to represent me."
Rourke also credits 13 years of therapy for helping him realize that he brought his downfall upon himself: "Once I understood it was my fault for short-circuiting, I realized I had to be accountable for my actions. I couldn't even afford to see a therapist. He took me on and said, 'I know you're a man of your word and will pay me back.' I think I ended up owing him $68,000." And yes, it's all been paid back.
Beyond the Mat
Asked if therapy helped him become a better actor, Rourke says it was his time back in the ring that was more beneficial. "It instilled in me two things that were my weaknesses as an actor and a person: focus and concentration," he says. "As a fighter, you have to be so disciplined. When that bell rings, you have to be right there. You can't say, 'Wait, I'm not ready.' It gave me the capacity to be in a room full of technicians and have to do a scene and stay in the moment."
As Rourke re-entered the acting world, he met with directors to show them he'd changed. Francis Ford Coppola, who had cast him in 1983's Rumble Fish, gave him another shot with The Rainmaker. Rourke worked twice with Robert Rodriguez, in Sin City and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. "Those were the steppingstones," the actor says. "Those directors took a chance on me, and I think word went through the grapevine that I was different now. I was there, I was on time, I knew my lines, I delivered."
Then Aronofsky came to him with The Wrestler. The role of Randy "The Ram" Robinson seemed a perfect fit for Rourke: a tale of past glory squandered but with hope for redemption. "Darren said to me, 'You've ruined your career; I can only get $5 million with you. They want a movie star in the role, and I can get $16 million to do it with someone else. If I do it with you, you're going to have to listen to everything I say, do everything I tell you, never disrespect me.'" Rourke pauses. "I thought, that's my kind of guy."
But within the month, Rourke had been replaced by Nicolas Cage — who called him and asked for his blessing to take the part, which Rourke gave. "I was okay with it," he says, "because when I read this and I met Darren, I knew he'd want my soul. I knew he'd want me to revisit some dark, painful places. I also knew I'd have to put on 30 pounds of muscle. He's gonna want my blood, this kid. So I was kind of happy. My agent was devastated, people that knew about it were devastated, but I was relieved."
To this day he doesn't know what happened, but Cage fell through, and Aronofsky brought Rourke back. And how did he feel then? "I was not relieved, because I knew this little fucker was going to want my blood. And he got it."
Rourke's blood is visible, literally and figuratively, in The Wrestler. Critics have hailed his performance as heart-wrenching and a heavy favorite entering awards season having already received an Independent Spirit Award nomination. And he's heard the word comeback more than a few times in the last few months. "Comeback is a nice word, but you can't sum it up in those two words," he says. "You look up the word comeback in the dictionary and you have to ask, come back from where? Come back from having a ham sandwich? Come back from taking a piss? Come back from the war and have both your legs missing? Come back is a process over time, and I've worked very, very hard to change."
Outtakes
Other films include A Prayer for the Dying, Barfly, and The Pledge, as well as Domino and Man on Fire for director Tony Scott
Allegedly turned down Bruce Willis' role in Pulp Fiction and the lead in Beverly Hills Cop
Has written several films under the pen name "Sir" Eddie Cook, including Homeboy and Bullet
Has a 16-year-old Chihuahua named Loki (after the Norse god of mischief), who accompanies him everywhere. When Loki was in an animal hospital while Rourke was shooting The Wrestler, the actor would think about him to prepare for emotional scenes.