After an up, down…and down personal career, Mickey Roarke portrays a man on a similar life trajectory, seeking a final and redeeming third act in his life. Only in Mickey’s case, the critics are already talking an Oscar nomination.

By: Izumi Hasegawa

Izumi Hasegawa: How familiar were you with the world of wrestling?

Mickey Rourke: Zip. I knew that I didn’t like it. When I was a kid, some of the kids used to go to boxing matches, and the others used to go to the wrestling. I just went to one of them and I went, “This ain’t for me,” cause it was fake. I’m looking at people going, “No it’s real,” I’m going, “No, it’s fake.” And that was a big argument I remember having with kids on the block and shit, and I never had no love for it until… let’s see — we did three and a half months — until about the beginning of the third month, and then I went, “This is my third trip to the hospital and my third MRI, and these guys have to be in shape.” I was gasping because it’s a different type of workout. I couldn’t do any of the flips and stuff, and one of the guys, who was very athletic, was doing these really interesting moves, like out the ring, across the neck, flipping over, scissors, from this here… And I’d go out on Sundays and not tell Darren [Aronofsky], ’cause what I wanted to do was impress Darren and to secretly have like four moves that were really hard to do for any wrestler, ’cause we basically had to choreograph where any half-ass athlete could do it, and then I wanted to take it another step higher and really fucking bring it. I wanted Darren to be really happy with me, and it worked out great, and I had a new respect for these guys. What I liked about them is they’re really a funny breed. There’s a lot of camaraderie there. They travel together, they eat together, they screw together, they drink together, they talk about different supplements that will help each other out better…even if a guy does only half a bottle of this, I’ll give it to you, ’cause they always need to keep that edge, and they help each other too ’cause they depend on each other for their livelihood. A lot of them work, they travel in the same car — a broken down car — together and they’re all eating at McDonalds and shit, they’re both sharing gas money, and at the end of the day, because they’re on the road so much, they don’t have much of a family life, whatever they have for a wife or girlfriend or a kid, they’re not able to be that responsible for. And then time goes by and they’re left alone. I mean, we’ve seen that even in the acting professions.

IH: How was the supermarket behind-the-counters experience?

MR: It was very shameful for a guy like Randy to be behind counters slicing salami to some blue-haired lady. [Laughs] He’s waiting to go to Madison Square Garden again, not work behind a counter with a hair net on. I don’t think Randy found that much fun.

IH: But the showmanship kind of comes out at one point.

MR: Yeah, I think out of boredom. But there again is another authority figure who’s like four feet tall, telling him what to do, and I don’t think he’s going to go through the rest of his life listening to some midget telling him how to dish out coleslaw. That’s no way to live. And he’s trapped in that trailer with just memories.  But he’s not giving up. He’s trying to keep that edge; that’s why he’s always in the gym sticking needles in his ass and trying to still beat the clock, which already went past where it should have been, and then trying to repair the relationships that he had — one that he’ll never repair, one that he doesn’t quite know how to — because he’s never been consistent with his life. I can relate to that myself, so I knew why Darren wanted me to do the movie and why he fought fucking really hard for me to do the part, and why, I think, there was a big part of me inside that didn’t want to do the part. I mean, the guy’s living in a state of disgrace, a state of shame, he was somebody at one time and now he’s nobody, he can’t even fill up his car half the time… I’ve been there and it’s no walk in the park, and I think it’s why he chooses, when he’s not feeling very well, to have that last fight. I just think sometimes he’s just got to say, “It’s not going to happen for me; I might as well just step on the gas.”

IH: Evan [Rachel Wood] mentioned that doing this film helped her reconcile with her own real life dad, and you’re mentioning here… Without prying, whatever you want to discuss, obviously, did this film help you find peace with some relationships, just in general, or did Darren know you beforehand in order to know that this would be good for you?

MR: Probably. Darren knew things, ’cause I don’t read anything that’s written about me…

IH: But he didn’t know you know you, right?

MR: The way Darren works, Darren knew more about me than I probably wanted him to or realized he did. I also know Darren talked to half a dozen different directors that I’ve worked with in the past, and he knew a lot more about me than I did about him. All I knew about him was two movies he made and all the stuff that was comparable — when I asked people that I respected — comparable to like Coppola, about his mind, him being smarter than the rest of us…and directors like him come around every thirty years. Sitting there talking to him, I knew what the man was made out of, and I also knew what he wanted out of me and why he wanted that. There was big part of me that, when he said how hard it was going to be for him to make the movie with me, and how I’d fucked my career up for fifteen years and he couldn’t raise the money and yet he still fought really hard for me, and I’m thinking, well, I have been really working hard to change for over a decade and I still can’t get back in the game… I thinking this guy’s fishing in some deep water here, and he’s laying his balls over the fence fighting for me. So I decided right then and there, if this thing happens, I’m going to give him all of me, and he didn’t have to point his hand at me and tell me to “listen to everything I say and you can never disrespect me” in front of the crew. I wasn’t going to, but from things I’ve done in the past and the way I behaved in the past, I don’t blame him for repeating that to me, and I didn’t mind it ’cause I’ve got to remind myself all the time shit like that. The old silly shit. And after about the sixth day, I think it was the scene with Evan Rachel Wood and it was a very emotional scene, and we didn’t even know each other. I didn’t even know her name. I didn’t even know all three of her names put together. [Laughs] It was like, I thought we got something special here, and I knew Darren did, and it’s very rare that I look forward to going to work with an actor the next day, but I was really looking forward to working with her and working with him, and just going in another room with the pro-wrestler guy and trying to do those sophisticated moves that were really hard to do. It was the hardest fucking movie I ever made, and I mean it was just physically and emotionally draining, and when I got done with the movie, it was the first time in twenty years I wanted to go to a wrap party, but I couldn’t get off the couch for four days. And Darren is the kind of director that, in a way, I gave him so much of me. I was thinking to myself, “hmm, I can’t wait till you get your hands on the next fish you work with because if you’re not in shape, this guy will bring you down.” I mean, he wants all of you. And to me, he was like a football coach — a guy like Vince Lombardi. I mean, he breaks your ass at practice so on Sunday, you can win. And he related to me that way, he pushed my buttons that way, and he challenged me to bring it. He’d say, “I want you to bring it on this one,” and I’d do it and he’d go, “Now I want you to really bring it.” [Laughs] And I’d do it, and he’d grab me and he’d say, “Bring it,” and he wanted it so bad, it was like I wanted it too, but he wanted it just as bad as me. And he worked with me a certain way and he’d work with Evan another way, but he got performances — it wasn’t just me. I remember looking at the crew and, like I said, we didn’t have chairs in the room — the first time I was ever on a movie set in my life where there was no fucking chair to sit down. On this set, I needed a chair. [Laughs] And I remember one day, ’cause he wanted to do it like a documentary style — in a very objective way with all handheld — and I remember looking in front of me, I was huffing and puffing, I had just jumped over the top rope, and there was something else they wanted to throw in extra, and I was hyperventilating somewhere and I came back to do it again, and I’m looking at me and I’m standing there looking at this camera operator who was doing the handheld stuff, and beads of sweat were pouring off this guy’s face. And I just said to him, “What’s your name?” I wanted to know his name ’cause he was bringing it — he was just fucking…and they did that for Darren.

IH: How much preparation did you have, in terms of working out the fight choreography?

MR: We had about four months. And then, like I said, it was pretty basic. And then I’d see this guy who was very artistically, athletically inclined, out of boredom, do like this shit from outside the ring, like over the ring, the scissors thing, and then I’d see him do the reverse scissors, and then I saw him jump out of the ring one day, onto a mat, and I went, I want to do all that shit. [Laughs] And I think it paid off, ’cause Darren insisted that I do everything. Plus, I was more coordinated than my double.

IH: What kind of stunt training did you do?

MR: We did it for about four months…

IH: I’m talking about physical training, ’cause your body looked okay.

MR: Oh, physical. Yeah. That was six months of pumping iron. Like I said, this Israeli ex-commando cage fighter broke my ass down in Miami, when I went back home to train. And for about six and a half, seven months, we just hit the iron really, really hard and did the cardio, ate about between six and seven meals a day, and a lot of vitamin supplements…

IH: ‘Cause in that first scene, where you had nothing but the hair showing, and then you throw your hair up and they reveal your body for the first time, I was like, “Damn, was that Mickey?” [Laughs]

MR: Yeah, I even walked by mirrors in the gym and went, “What the fuck is going on?” [Laughs] And then my agent said to me, “Lose it quick.” And then the guy who just was in the room says, “‘Cause I know you like walking around looking like that,” and I’ve taken off all but about ten pounds of it…

IH: How much did you put on?

MR: I went from 192 to 235. And so he says, “Lose it.” He says, “How are you going to play a lawyer or a doctor looking like that?” I said, “I don’t want to play a lawyer or a doctor.” [Laughs] Those aren’t fun roles.

IH: Speaking of the hard stuff, what about those hair extensions?

MR: [Laughs] Yeah, that was eight hours, and the other thing was we picked out the look, ’cause the look was from the ’80s, so we had to pick out like…they dressed a little differently in the ’80s than they do now. They had a lot more color, and they all wore arm bands and shit, and they all had really long hair, and it was just a different look. It was like a heavy metal look, and that was the whole part of the thing was that he’s trying to get back to those glory days, and he wants one more shot at going and wrestling at Madison Square Garden, and instead he ends up in that room with all them geriatric wrestlers — the one with the piss bag and the one selling his old boxing shoes — and it was very important for me… I told Darren I wanted to use this hearing aid and I had known a wrestler from Gold’s Gym back in the day that had actually hearing aids in both ears. I think his stuff was from working in a Harley Davidson shop, but this guy was a pro-wrestler named Magic, and I based my character on him because he was actually one of my brother’s closest friends, and so Darren and I fought about the hearing aid ’cause he thought I wanted to use it as a prop, but I wanted to really use it symbolically of just showing him, no matter how much iron he’s pumping or how much shit he’s taking, he’s slowly breaking down. And so we used it in a very discreet way. Instead of just having it always there, we would use it when he goes talk to a girl, he wouldn’t have it in ’cause it’s kind of sign of breaking down or whatever, or before he goes into the arena, he’d put it in his pocket, and so I think the way of having it was fine, but the genius part of it was the way Darren used it, or instructed me to use it.

IH: How much of your boxing experience helped…?

MR: It did, and it hurt me like hell…

IH: …In many ways — the physical and the mental?

MR: The boxing didn’t help me at all. It got in the way because, for fifteen, seventeen, whatever fucking years, everything was short and fast, and you move gracefully. So it took me a month and a half to stop moving like a boxer. And Darren would yell at me from his office door, ’cause we had the ring in his loft. He’d go, “You’re moving like a boxer!” [Laughs] And I’d go, “Fucking close the door!” [Laughs] And then, as soon as we banned him from the set, I told the stunt coordinator, “Please keep him out of the room. Let me learn a few moves and then he can yell at me.” To answer your question, the boxing hurt me more than it helped me, because everything is short and quick and fast. In here, you want to sell it to the audience, so it felt so artificial, and it was also. It was like my muscles… And even the footwork too, because I’d learned for so many years to move a certain way in the ring, and wrestling — I had to change all that. And it was really hard to make the change.

IH: And also the kind of fame, the fans respond on the ring… For me, it’s kind of the similar experience, through your boxing experience.

MR: There was one moment in the movie where I was backstage, ready to go into the first match, and I recalled how it used to feel to go to Germany or Argentina, or places that I’ve fought, in Oklahoma, and be backstage, because I always get nervous in the dressing room when Freddie Roach was wrapping my hands. I’d go, “It’s too tight,” he’d go, “It’s not too tight.” I’d go, “It’s too tight,” “It’s not too tight.” And then I said, “I can’t breathe,” and then I’d hear the door open and you’d hear the crowd, and then I’d fucking…it’s terrifying. But as soon as my music came on, I was okay. I used to come out to “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” so I asked Darren, “Can we blast that?” We didn’t have enough money for this movie, so when I called Axl to ask him, Axl did us a really great favor and gave us “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” which I’m so thankful to him for that, and then Slash gave us some riffs. We couldn’t afford either one of those guys. I wrote Springsteen a letter, and he wrote us a beautiful theme song for the end of the movie that just, if you listen to the words of it, it sort of sums up the whole character really — it’s a beautiful fucking song.

IH: Have you seen the film yet?

MR: I don’t watch anything, I saw the wrestling stuff, that’s all I could bear watching. I’ll look at it in a couple of years, because I don’t want to really see the emotional stuff right now, and I really don’t like watching my own movies, to be honest with you.

IH: In your interpretation, does that guy die in that final fight?

MR: I hope so, yeah.

IH: Evan told us she’s got a scar on her finger from…

MR: Throwing the cans at my head.

IH: Do you have any lasting…

MR: Scars?

IH: Yeah, from the movie?

MR: Only a few I can’t talk about. [Laughs] Only ones I can’t talk about.

SEE BUZZINE REVIEW OF “THE WRESTLER”