We are sitting at a corner table in an Italian cafe a few blocks from the rented Greenwich Village townhouse he shares with his beloved dogs and his manager. It is early December, just as the Academy Award frenzy is beginning to peak. This interview is part of that frenzy, part of playing “the game” that the old Rourke once disdained so vocally. But now, for perhaps the first time, he is not too proud to admit he wants to win. “Everybody wants to play in the big game on Sunday,” he says. “But if you don’t train hard — if you don’t do your roadwork — you’re not gonna.” Five days after he said that, Rourke nabbed a Golden Globe nomination for best actor.
It’s been a long time since Rourke, who once studied with Elia Kazan and Sandra Seacat, has won attention for his acting instead of his antics. He gained critical acclaim in 1981 for his breakout role in Body Heat and, in 1983, got the best supporting actor award from the National Society of Film Critics for his role in Diner. In 1984 many praised his unforgettable performance as a small-time hood with big dreams in The Pope of Greenwich Village. He became a sex symbol by romancing Kim Basinger in 9 1/2 Weeks. But he never got nominated for an Oscar.
“Listen, I get laid more now than I did back then, so I’m not going to complain,” he says.
Rourke looks out from under a cowboy hat, his two front teeth rimmed in gold for an upcoming role, his blue jeans slack on a lean frame (he’s almost back to his normal weight, 195), his mien a weird mix of warmth and ferocity. This is a man who says he finds punching things relaxing but also a man who dissolves into tears when Loki or one of his other five dogs falls ill. That soft/hard duality is on display in The Wrestler, too. But Rourke wants people to know that, all echoes aside, he isn’t just playing himself. Before you can be considered for best actor, after all, people have to believe you were acting.
Because he is trained as a boxer, many think wrestling came easy for Rourke. On the contrary, he says: Boxing is short, quick movements, while pro wrestling is more acrobatic, with exaggerated, roundhouse swings. “It’s like ping-pong and rugby,” he says of the two sports. “I had so many habits to break.”
Rourke, who for years has followed anti-aging regimens that include self-administered B-12 shots and intravenous vitamin replacement sessions, is serious about his body. Even before The Wrestler he worked out for 80 minutes five times a week, a mixture of cardio, light weights, and boxing — mitts only, no contact. “I can’t do any contact anymore,” he says, repeating a doctor’s assessment.
To acquire the physique of a wrestler he pushed himself to the limit. (Officially, he did it with twice-daily workouts with a former Israeli cage fighter and seven meals a day, but when I ask if he also used steroids or human growth hormone, he smiles conspiratorially and says, “When I’m a wrestler, I behave like a wrestler.”) He did all of his own stunts, diving off the ropes onto the mat, flipping backward through the air, even doing what pro wrestlers call “gigging.” Aronofsky asked Rourke, in their first conversation about the film, if he was familiar with the term. He wasn’t, so the director explained: To give audiences the gore they want, wrestlers often hide bits of razor blade in their taped-up wrists. Then, at the right moment, they cut themselves, usually on the face so the blood will flow into their eyes.
“Darren said, ‘I’m going to want you to gig in the movie.’ And it was always on my mind: God, when are we going to do that scene,” Rourke says. “So the night of the scene, he says, ‘You really don’t have to do it.’ I said, ‘Fuck you. I’m gigging!’ ”
The scene is hard to watch, not just for the blood but for the desperation in Rourke’s eyes. “I wasn’t doing it for my art; I was doing it for Darren,” Rourke says. “Because Darren challenged me. He knew how to push my buttons.”
