Mickey Rourke: I've hacked off so many people in Hollywood, who the hell would give me an Oscar?
By Chris Sullivan
20th February 2009
Mickey Rourke is hot favourite to win the Best Actor Oscar this weekend.
His role as a washed-up, 50-something grappler in The Wrestler has brought him a Bafta and a Golden Globe on top of 15 or so trophies from critics' circles in the U.S. But Rourke isn't so sure that the Oscar is in the bag. 'Well, I don't know,' he says. 'It's voted for by people from the movie business and in the past I've hacked them all off. I was good at that. It came easy to me. I stupidly said acting wasn't a job for a real man. I threatened producers, raged at directors, forgot my agent's name. I really burned my bridges. And a lot of people have long memories.'
By Chris Sullivan
20th February 2009
Mickey Rourke is hot favourite to win the Best Actor Oscar this weekend.
His role as a washed-up, 50-something grappler in The Wrestler has brought him a Bafta and a Golden Globe on top of 15 or so trophies from critics' circles in the U.S. But Rourke isn't so sure that the Oscar is in the bag. 'Well, I don't know,' he says. 'It's voted for by people from the movie business and in the past I've hacked them all off. I was good at that. It came easy to me. I stupidly said acting wasn't a job for a real man. I threatened producers, raged at directors, forgot my agent's name. I really burned my bridges. And a lot of people have long memories.'
When we meet in London, he could not look more different from The Ram. Gone is the dyed long blond hair and pumped biceps, while the Spandex leotard has been replaced by a sharp pinstripe suit. If it wasn't for his low, slow, deliberate East Coast growl, I might have thought he was a different person.
'I was out of control and did not think the party was going to end. I could stay in any hotel, buy anything I wanted [he once bought six Cadillacs for cash and then gave them all away] and take out all my entourage to dinner. My mansion in Beverly Hills was like something from Halloween III - Elvis on acid.My brother and I had six motorcycles each, and we flew the Confederate flag and a Jolly Roger over the garage. The neighbours were moving in and out almost monthly.'
Rourke didn't realise that he was spiralling into disaster. 'You don't think it is going to end and when it does, it is real scary. I lost everything: my house, my career, my wife. My life was a disaster zone. No one knew just how broke I was. I was paying $500 a month for a one-room apartment with a yard for my dogs.'
'I was out of control and did not think the party was going to end. I could stay in any hotel, buy anything I wanted [he once bought six Cadillacs for cash and then gave them all away] and take out all my entourage to dinner. My mansion in Beverly Hills was like something from Halloween III - Elvis on acid.My brother and I had six motorcycles each, and we flew the Confederate flag and a Jolly Roger over the garage. The neighbours were moving in and out almost monthly.'
Rourke didn't realise that he was spiralling into disaster. 'You don't think it is going to end and when it does, it is real scary. I lost everything: my house, my career, my wife. My life was a disaster zone. No one knew just how broke I was. I was paying $500 a month for a one-room apartment with a yard for my dogs.'
He points to a chihuahua dressed in a cashmere jumper and diamante necklace asleep on the couch. 'That's Loki. She's 18. I had her mother and father and I've got her two brothers, too. My dogs kept me going, along with a friend who used to give me a couple of hundred of dollars a month just to buy something to eat. I'd be calling up my former wife and crying like a baby.' Sadly, a few days after our interview, Loki died of old age.
He turned down Kevin Costner's role as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables and a role in The Silence Of The Lambs. 'I remember Dustin Hoffman calling me up and telling me he wanted me to do this movie, Rain Man, and I didn't even return his call,' he says. 'Quentin Tarantino called once - I think it was for Pulp Fiction, the part Bruce Willis played. I didn't even read the script. I allowed myself to get proud and angry because I could do the acting. I thought I'd have to be dead not to f***ing work.'
As was his wont, in 1989 Rourke poured oil on the fire and embarked on an explosive six-year relationship with his future wife Carrie Otis, a former Revlon model and his co-star in Wild Orchid. Otis said Rourke could be 'amazing and talented', but then fell into 'periods of being terrible'.
'I really loved her,' he declares, touching the tattoo of her name on his arm. 'But we were like fire and fire. And then she left. I waited for her to come back, but when my brother Joe died, I gave up. The last thing I heard was that she'd moved to Colorado and has two kids.'
Joe had died in his arms after years of battle with cancer that had started in his late teens. Rourke became even more lost, until friends urged him to seek psychiatric help. What he uncovered put his life into perspective.
He turned down Kevin Costner's role as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables and a role in The Silence Of The Lambs. 'I remember Dustin Hoffman calling me up and telling me he wanted me to do this movie, Rain Man, and I didn't even return his call,' he says. 'Quentin Tarantino called once - I think it was for Pulp Fiction, the part Bruce Willis played. I didn't even read the script. I allowed myself to get proud and angry because I could do the acting. I thought I'd have to be dead not to f***ing work.'
As was his wont, in 1989 Rourke poured oil on the fire and embarked on an explosive six-year relationship with his future wife Carrie Otis, a former Revlon model and his co-star in Wild Orchid. Otis said Rourke could be 'amazing and talented', but then fell into 'periods of being terrible'.
'I really loved her,' he declares, touching the tattoo of her name on his arm. 'But we were like fire and fire. And then she left. I waited for her to come back, but when my brother Joe died, I gave up. The last thing I heard was that she'd moved to Colorado and has two kids.'
Joe had died in his arms after years of battle with cancer that had started in his late teens. Rourke became even more lost, until friends urged him to seek psychiatric help. What he uncovered put his life into perspective.
'I come from a violent background,' he says, close to tears. 'So I became hard. I realised that I had made myself that way to deal with a feeling of abandonment and shame. My father abandoned me when I was a little kid and never came to see us. I never knew why.
My mother then married a physically and mentally abusive cop. She let things happen to me and Joe and never did anything about it. It went on for ten years.
I tried to protect Joe because, even though I was just a year older, I really felt like his dad. We were extremely close and I looked out for him, he stops and wipes a tear from his eye. ''I kept all of this inside.'
After a few years of therapy, Rourke realised that this silence was part of his problem. 'The anxiety always comes out eventually,' he says. 'For me, it was not manifested vocally, but by being belligerent. I blamed everyone in Hollywood and identified them with this authority figure who had beaten me with a stick. I spent so long studying really hard to become a fine actor, but threw it all away.'
'My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's six months ago and she doesn't remember what happened, so now I'm OK with her. I was angry with her for my whole life. She let it happen, yet she was supposed to be responsible for me and Joe.
All of these things have made me realise why I p****d people off. I regret it, but I didn't know any better at the time. I'm not angry with anyone now. I'm just grateful for this second chance with my career. This part was a gift from God.'
'I'd heard good things about the director, Darren Aronofsky, then when I met him he held up his finger and said: "No one wants me to do this movie with you because you're not a star any more and you messed up your career for 20 years. "Then he said: "Listen, if I get the money to make The Wrestler, you're going to listen to everything I say and you are not going to disrespect me. Also, I can't pay you." And I thought: "Well, you've got b***s to say that; this is my kind of man." '
My mother then married a physically and mentally abusive cop. She let things happen to me and Joe and never did anything about it. It went on for ten years.
I tried to protect Joe because, even though I was just a year older, I really felt like his dad. We were extremely close and I looked out for him, he stops and wipes a tear from his eye. ''I kept all of this inside.'
After a few years of therapy, Rourke realised that this silence was part of his problem. 'The anxiety always comes out eventually,' he says. 'For me, it was not manifested vocally, but by being belligerent. I blamed everyone in Hollywood and identified them with this authority figure who had beaten me with a stick. I spent so long studying really hard to become a fine actor, but threw it all away.'
'My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's six months ago and she doesn't remember what happened, so now I'm OK with her. I was angry with her for my whole life. She let it happen, yet she was supposed to be responsible for me and Joe.
All of these things have made me realise why I p****d people off. I regret it, but I didn't know any better at the time. I'm not angry with anyone now. I'm just grateful for this second chance with my career. This part was a gift from God.'
'I'd heard good things about the director, Darren Aronofsky, then when I met him he held up his finger and said: "No one wants me to do this movie with you because you're not a star any more and you messed up your career for 20 years. "Then he said: "Listen, if I get the money to make The Wrestler, you're going to listen to everything I say and you are not going to disrespect me. Also, I can't pay you." And I thought: "Well, you've got b***s to say that; this is my kind of man." '
For the role Rourke trained day and night for three months and put on 36lb of muscle, yet it was not the physical rigours that concerned him. 'When I read the story and then met Darren, I knew he was going to make me go to some dark places and it would be painful emotionally and physically. But I'm so glad I did it because it is the best work I've done in the best film of my career.'
Rourke does all his own stunts in The Wrestler, even to the point of cutting himself across the forehead with a concealed razor blade - a trick common among wrestlers called gigging. 'I can hurt myself, but only when my woman leaves me, but the day we had to do it I wasn't upset about anything,' he says.
'Darren said: "Listen, you don't have to cut yourself if you don't want to - we'll get around it." So I was like: "F*** that - let's do it.'''
Rourke is no stranger to pain. In his early life, he had been a successful amateur boxer and in 1991, after he fell foul of Hollywood, he re-entered the ring as a professional at the age of 39.
'I went back because of shame,' he says. 'I was a good amateur and took a year off due to concussion. I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three.' He had intended to return to the ring for just one bout, but that spiralled into eight, until he was advised to stop because of neurological problems.
'I didn't lose any pro fights, but I got properly kicked every day in the gym,' he says.
'I sparred with James Toney, who kicked my *** for 18 months, but now I look at him as the guy who beat Evander Holyfield and think: "Hey! I'm not so bad." I had my nose broken twice. I had five operations on my nose and one on a smashed cheekbone. I had to have cartilage taken from my ear to rebuild my nose and a couple of operations to scrape out the cartilage because the scar tissue wasn't healing properly. That was one of the most painful operations.' There has been much speculation about the state of Rourke's face: is it the result of the boxing or bad cosmetic surgery? 'Most of it was to mend the mess of my face because of the boxing, but I went to the wrong guy to put my face back together,' he says.
In the highly anticipated The Informers by the Buffalo Soldiers director Gregor Jordan, he plays Peter, a seriously scary criminal, alongside Billy Bob Thornton and Kim Basinger.
He is Jefferson in the Hollywood remake of the Eastern European hit 13 and is rumoured to be starring as Marv in Sin City 2.
But he's still fretting about Sunday's Academy Awards because he is convinced that he has upset too many of the powerful voters and so will be overlooked for the Oscar.
dailymail.co.uk
Rourke does all his own stunts in The Wrestler, even to the point of cutting himself across the forehead with a concealed razor blade - a trick common among wrestlers called gigging. 'I can hurt myself, but only when my woman leaves me, but the day we had to do it I wasn't upset about anything,' he says.
'Darren said: "Listen, you don't have to cut yourself if you don't want to - we'll get around it." So I was like: "F*** that - let's do it.'''
Rourke is no stranger to pain. In his early life, he had been a successful amateur boxer and in 1991, after he fell foul of Hollywood, he re-entered the ring as a professional at the age of 39.
'I went back because of shame,' he says. 'I was a good amateur and took a year off due to concussion. I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three.' He had intended to return to the ring for just one bout, but that spiralled into eight, until he was advised to stop because of neurological problems.
'I didn't lose any pro fights, but I got properly kicked every day in the gym,' he says.
'I sparred with James Toney, who kicked my *** for 18 months, but now I look at him as the guy who beat Evander Holyfield and think: "Hey! I'm not so bad." I had my nose broken twice. I had five operations on my nose and one on a smashed cheekbone. I had to have cartilage taken from my ear to rebuild my nose and a couple of operations to scrape out the cartilage because the scar tissue wasn't healing properly. That was one of the most painful operations.' There has been much speculation about the state of Rourke's face: is it the result of the boxing or bad cosmetic surgery? 'Most of it was to mend the mess of my face because of the boxing, but I went to the wrong guy to put my face back together,' he says.
In the highly anticipated The Informers by the Buffalo Soldiers director Gregor Jordan, he plays Peter, a seriously scary criminal, alongside Billy Bob Thornton and Kim Basinger.
He is Jefferson in the Hollywood remake of the Eastern European hit 13 and is rumoured to be starring as Marv in Sin City 2.
But he's still fretting about Sunday's Academy Awards because he is convinced that he has upset too many of the powerful voters and so will be overlooked for the Oscar.
dailymail.co.uk
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