Actor Mickey Rourke teamed up with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky for the Oscar-nominated film The Wrestler. The movie marked a bit of a comeback for Rourke after years of controversy briefly stalled his career.
But Aronofsky found out quickly that Rourke wasn’t the type of actor he could manage.
Mickey Rourke was ‘uncontrollable’ while making ‘The Wrestler’
Rourke had a lot in common with his character Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson in The Wrestler. In the feature, Rourke played a former pro-wrestling superstar whose glory days were left far behind him.
Similarly, Rourke was an actor in real-life who burnt many bridges in Hollywood because of his controversy. This left Rourke without significant work in the industry for several years. It was to the point where Rourke was considering doing regular work to make ends meet.
“I think I ran out of motorcycles, and I called up a friend to see if I could get a construction job. I thought, ‘If I could work in the Valley somewhere, nobody will recognize me.’ I call up my friend in the construction business and I said, ‘Listen, I need a construction job.’ He said, ‘Mickey, I’m really busy. I don’t have time for your s*** right now.’ I was sitting there and I remember thinking, ‘Jesus Christ. I can’t even get a f***ing construction job,” Rourke once told Pop Entertainment.
Aronofsky casting Rourke in the film helped the former 80s superstar experience a career resurgence. But as collaborative as Rourke was, the Whale director asserted that it was hard sometimes to manage him for the feature. The collaboration ended up changing Aronofsky’s approach to filmmaking entirely.
“I think working with Mickey Rourke kind of changed my take on film-making because there was no way to really control him. It was more about sticking him in a room with a load of toys and letting him loose and then being in the moment with him and sort of directing in the moment it was almost like my own kind of performance,” Aronofsky once said in an interview with What Culture.
Mickey Rourke was glad Darren Aronofsky didn’t meet him in his younger years
Because of Rourke’s reputation, it took a lot of hard work to get him on board the project. Even after it seemed that the film wouldn’t star Rourke, Aronofsky continued to vouch for the actor.
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“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,” Rourke once told Collider. “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.”
Rourke had a lot of respect for the Black Swan filmmaker, but because of Aronofsky’s directing style, he came to Rourke at the right time. If the Sin City star was approached by Aronofsky in his younger years, the filmmaker would’ve encountered a much different Rourke.
“And he didn’t meet me 15 years ago, thank God,” he said. “If somebody said to me, ‘Do you think you could have given the same performance 15 years ago?’ and I went, ‘F*** yeah.’ And then when I thought about it, I went, ‘No. I would have told him to [f*** off], or kicked him in the ass,’ you know?”
Why Darren Aronofsky wanted to cast Mickey Rourke in ‘The Wrestler’
Rourke may have been perfect for The Wrestler given his own real-life parallels to the character. But Aronofsky also included the actor in the feature simply because he was a fan of the star’s work.
“I do know that I was a big fan since I saw him in Angel Heart. I was 18, backpacking around Europe, and in Paris where I went in to see the film and it just blew me away. Since then I’ve been a big fan,” Aronofsky once told Screen Anarchy.
So when it came time to cast, Aronofsky couldn’t help think about the former boxer. He wasn’t completely sure, however, that Rourke would’ve done what was required for the part. But it didn’t take long for Rourke to convince him.
“I needed someone who could do the physicality. I remember being originally concerned about the physicality because normally he’s about 190,” he said. “He’s a big guy but he’s not huge like a wrestler so I was wondering if he could do it. It turns out Mickey’s dad Philip Andre Rourke, Sr. was a Mr. New York, a body builder back in the days, so Mickey grew up within the bodybuilding culture. So he was excited to do this.”
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