{"id":1550,"date":"2009-02-04T10:56:15","date_gmt":"2009-02-04T09:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/blog\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2015-03-26T15:45:09","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T15:45:09","slug":"mickey-rourke-pounds-pavement-as-well-as-ring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=1550","title":{"rendered":"Mickey Rourke pounds pavement for ‘The Wrestler’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mickey+Rourke+Darren+Aronofsky+Cinema+Society+CKOift-gDNyl\"<\/a>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

British director Darren Aronofsky says he thinks Mickey Rourke still hasn\u2019t seen \u201cThe Wrestler\u201d, the picture they made about a beat-up fighter that has resurrected the actor\u2019s career. He might not have seen it but, boy, has he been talking about it.<\/p>\n

Rourke says that making the film required months of muscle-building and training, and included several trips to the hospital, but no matter how hard that was, it\u2019s nothing compared to the marathon he\u2019s been on in promoting it.<\/p>\n

From Venice last year, where \u201cThe Wrestler\u201d, which costars Marisa Tomei (pictured with Rourke and Aronofsky) won the big prize, the Golden Lion, to Toronto, where critics raved about him, to the Golden Globes, where he won as best actor in a drama, Rourke has proved indefatigable in talking about the film.<\/p>\n

Made for peanuts, the film hasn\u2019t torn up the box office but if it does well in the Bafta awards on Sunday and especially later this month in the Oscars \u2014 and Rourke is in with a great shout as best actor against the other favourites, Sean Penn for \u201cMilk\u201d and Frank Langella for \u201cFrost\/Nixon\u201d \u2014 then things will pick up and the promise for DVD and Blu-ray looks high for Optimum, which released the film in the UK in January.<\/p>\n

Rourke did all the major talk US shows from Letterman to Jay Leno and, in the UK, showed up not only on the breakfast TV shows but also Graham Norton\u2019s talk show where he flirted outrageously with Jessica Biel.<\/p>\n

What has made Rourke\u2019s appearances so appealing is that he has that most unlikely of American stories to tell: the second act. Having made a mark as an arsonist in \u201cBody Heat\u201d (1981), he leapt to fame in \u201cDiner\u201d (1982) and was soon starring in pictures such as \u201cThe Pope of Greenwich Village\u201d (1984), \u201cYear of the Dragon\u201d (1985) and \u201cNine and a Half Weeks\u201d (1986). He had three movies in 1987 \u2014 \u201cAngel Heart\u201d, \u201cBarfly\u201d and \u201cA Prayer For the Dying\u201d \u2014 and then suddenly it was all over.<\/p>\n

Rourke became Hollywood\u2019s favourite bad boy, branded as ego-driven, difficult and on his way down. The actor now makes no bones about it. Speaking in London at a Q&A, he said: \u201cComing up as a young actor, because of where I came from, there were no rules and I wasn\u2019t accountable. I didn\u2019t care about repercussions so whatever happened the night before, I didn\u2019t really give a damn what the repercussions were and the repercussions were severe because I was out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, he spent 14 years out in the acting cold and spent several of them as a professional boxer, another skill he\u2019d learned while young, he says: \u201cI was boxing many years before I was acting. I had injuries that meant I had to stop. I got into acting by accident.”<\/p>\n

But he studied hard and had the luck, but things changed: \u201cThen I was starting to make a lot of money for the first time in my life. I\u2019d never had any money. I bought the biggest car, the biggest house. Next thing I know, I\u2019m doing movies to pay off my lifestyle. What happened was I lost hold of what meant the most to me.<\/p>\n

“I took jobs that I didn\u2019t respect the material, didn\u2019t respect the director, didn\u2019t respect myself for doing them, and that\u2019s when I started to short-circuit because I was taking jobs for all the wrong reasons. Once that happened more than two or three times, I just lost respect for myself and for the profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aronofsky rescued him. He\u2019d won back a little respect with his appearance in \u201cSin City\u201d but while his name is on a bunch of films over the years, he rarely worked on them for more than a couple of days.<\/p>\n

Rourke says, \u201cHe came over and after he introduced himself he said, \u2018Well, you\u2019ve ruined your career for the last 15 years and I can\u2019t raise any money, nobody wants you \u2026 but if I put you in this movie\u2019 \u2014 and he put his finger in my face \u2014 \u2018You\u2019re going to listen to everything I tell you. You\u2019re going to do everything I say. You\u2019re not going to be running around in the clubs all night long. And you can never disrespect me in front of the crew. And I can\u2019t pay you.\u2019 I thought, \u2018Well, OK, he\u2019s smart and he\u2019s got a lot of balls.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Still Aronofsky had to fight to keep Rourke in the picture. The studio wanted Nicolas Cage but the director knew who would be perfect in the role, and he won the day. Now Rourke is in line to play a villain in the \u201cIron Man\u201d sequel. A great second act.<\/p>\n

This story appears in Cue Entertainment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett British director Darren Aronofsky says he thinks Mickey Rourke still hasn\u2019t seen \u201cThe Wrestler\u201d, the picture they made about a beat-up fighter that has resurrected the actor\u2019s career. He might not have seen it but, boy, has … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[258,486,878],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","tag-the-wrestler","tag-darren-aronofsky","tag-mickey-rourke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6137,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/6137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}