JS:When I
am working on a film as a director, what I
really want from my actors is not to act. It´s a
strange idea, because they are actors, but
watching you it always seems to work. You are an
actor who never seems to act. How do you do
that?
MR: It´s very
simple: When you act, it has to be personal. As
soon as it is personal, you get real ideas-
instead of pretending them .I was very fortunate
to be at the Actor´s Studio as a young man. The
style and the technique that was taught there,
comes more from the stage, developed by the
Russian Theatre revolutionist Stanislawski. And
it´s from a time, when actors rehearsed for a
play for 6 months and performed for 2 years. At
the Actor´s Studio I learned to concentrate and
to stay focused. You only succeeded if you
manage to stay relaxed. It´s all about
developing these skills, and to be able to blind
out all the technical stuff that is important
when making a movie. And you have to act from
moment to moment, because it is these moments
that make a movie special, not the whole film.
When you go the movies, you see individual
moments instead of whole films.
JS: You
say that actors back then had 2 years to act in
a play?
That´s right.
JS: So it
wasn´t a performance any more, it became reality
...
Exactly.
JS: Do
you think that the years when you went back into
the ring as a boxer were some sort of rehearsals
for your role in “The Wrestler?”
MR:
Acting and boxing have a lot in common. When
you´re boxing it´s very important to always stay
focused. As soon as you hear the gong, you have
to blend everything out and to always stay “in
the moment”. And you have to give everything you
can give, or you´ll be running into troubles.
When you act and you don´t give eveything, it´s
easier to get away with, but then you´re not a
very good actor, only average. I quit acting
because this was happening to me. In a way I was
a sell out. At the same time I swore to never
let this happen. But I found myself in the
situation that I was starring in films I didn’t
have any respect for. My only interest was to do
something for my bank account. I broke the
promise that I had given to myself as a young
man: to always be as good as I can.
JS: I
don´t like the word but is “ The Wrestler” an
autobiographical film?
MR: The funny thing
is that when I first read the screenplay I was
less interested in the story than to work with
Darren Aronofsky. I heard so many good things
about him: he is his own boss, he never makes
any compromises, he´s intelligent and innovative
and he takes risks. That´s what interested me
the most. When I heard about the story it was
more or less like: why on earth should I act in
a wrestler movie? I didn´t have any respect for
wrestling. All the fights are staged and not
real fights. Everybody knows that it´s only a
show.
JS: But
it is story about someone who is burned out ‑ a
fighter who realizes how much he has failed in
life.
MR: When I first
read the screenplay, I instantly thought about
rewriting it. Who else than me? I lived it, it
was my own story. So Darren and I were working
on the screenplay for 6 months, each day after
my training. 2 hours of lifting weights and 2
hours of wrestling training. I put on 2o kilos
and nearly had a x-break/star break. It wasn’t
something that I was expecting. It was
unthinkable for me that you can get hurt in the
ring - and then I had 2 MRI’s in 2 months
because it was that hard. On the other hand it
is logical that you get hurt as a wrestler. If a
130-kilo guy stems you up into the air and
throws you back down, you are not going to land
properly in most cases. Anyway, the making of
the film didn’t feel like a walk in the park.
And at the end of each day I swore to not go
back the next day.
JS:
Couldn’t you make it easier for you?
MR: No. Darren shot
the scenes with real wrestlers at real shows. We
just went in with our handcamera and shot our
fight scenes during breaks while a thousand of
people were watching. Besides I wanted to
impress the pros who had taught me all their
tricks.
JS: You
wanted to get their respect?
MR:Yes.
As much as they got my respect. These guys are
doing entertainment, but the injuries which they
get from these shows are real. Most of the
wrestling legends from the 80s are fucked up,
they can not even tie their shoelaces.
JS: What
do they say about your movie?
MR: We had a
screening with a lot of wrestlers in Los
Angeles. And then suddenly a guy named Rowdy
Roddy Piper, a legend from the 80s, stood up.
And this huge man started to cry, because for
him we had portrayed his life. As I said
before: “You are not an actor who acts but who
is.” It´s like in a fight. You have to be on
top of the game, or you lose, you drop out of it
and become mediocre. This was something that
stuck out when I read the screenplay: There´s
this 50-year-old guy and everybody tells him,
“You´re done, you´ve had your time, it´s over.”
He´s become too old for what he does, it´s not
the Madison Square Garden but small sport halls
in New Jersey, and it´s not 50 000 people in the
audience, but 2000. His wife has left him. His
daughter is a lesbian, he had never taken care
of her because he was always on the road. In a
word, this guy lives a life which is very
similar to the one I have had. I remember one
day I said to my therapist, Another 10 years
have passed. And I still can´t get a job.“Well,
I´ve made lots of mistakes and I haven´t come to
terms with many things as I didn´t know how to
adress these things.”
JS: How
did you suceed after all?
MR: First I had to
lose everything. And when I had lost it all I
looked into the mirror and said, “You have to
change.” So that´s what was the most difficult ‑
for me and for all the people around me. For a
long time I hadn´t realize how much I had been
fallen from grace. “To fall from grace” is a
phrase I would have never had used. It was only
when I was seeking a wise man´s advice who
showed me how to save my life and how to change
myself.
JS: What
kind of advice did he give you?
MR: He told me,
“You live in a state of despair, you have been
fallen from grace.” This was hard for me to
accept, I am a proud man. When I finally
understood what he had told me, I thought it
would take me 2 years to get back where I once
was. But it took me much, much longer. I´ve
become very bitter. I dissociated myself from
everything, I was arrogant and there was a lot
of anger inside of me, and beneath all of that
hid a lot of shame and desolation. Something I
realized only lately, because all my
bitterness and
impulse to destroy inhibited me from seeing who
I really was.
JS: This
sounds strange to me. I´ve watched you playing
with my
sons or my dogs
many times. You always seemed so gentle
and tender.
MR: Deep in my
heart I am a good person. I think that I have to
thank my grandmother for that. She was a
wonderful woman. But I´ve always had this one
big problem: As soon as I felt disrespected or
somebody was acting up, I blew a fuse. And
something dark came out of me. There were a lot
of reasons for my behaviour, but I was never
able to control it.
JS:So why
is it that I´ve never had any problems with you?
MR: Because you are
someone who approached me with respect. As soon
as I feel respected and feel respect myself, you
will get everything that I can give. But if
there was somebody I didn’t have any respect for
in the past, he´d have a very rough time with
me. That´s why I decided to only work with
people I can respect and to only work on
projects with integrity. I´ve realized that´s it
not good for me to take on a project just
because of the money. I have to be content with
less money and to work with people I can
respect. People who make me want to go to work
and not put me off.
JS: When
did you get to New York?
MR: I think it was
1974.
JS: We
first met when you finished shooting , Rumble
Fish“ with Francis Ford Coppola. Back then you
were incredible, full of euphoria. You wanted to
take everybody you met on the trip with you. You
were proud and you were constantly talking about
how much success you´d have. But suddenly you
lost that. And I couldn’t tell you, because
back then I didn’t know you that well.
MR: Well, back then
I was very arrogant. I came from the streets. I
spent so many years on the streets and carried
it with me like a burden. I treated actors the
same way as what I had experienced before. You
know, when I was working for the brothels on the
42nd street.
JS: What
on earth did you do?
MR: It was a time
when the 42nd street was still the 42nd street,
it wasn’t t as harmless as it is today. My job
was to look after the flyer distributors. The
brothels had these young boys from Puerto Rico
who handed out flyers on the street. And my job
was to walk around and to check if they did
their work. And I had to protect them from the
pimps because they ruined their business. So it
was up to me to tell the pimps to get lost.
JS: Were
you in a lot of fights?
MR: You bet.
JS: Did
you get into lots of fights when you were young?
MR: All the time.
It´s not something that I am proud of. But it
was a
matter of
surviving. This movie also deals with
survival... and mortality. Lots of things in
this movie are similar to my own personal story.
JS: There
this one scene in the movie that stuck out for
me. This man comes into the deli and recognizes
the wrestling hero of his past, who then starts
rampaging. Why? What´s his problem that somebody
admires him for old times´ sake?
MR: It´s the same
reason that I tried not to be recognized during
the last 10 years. When I went out to buy
cigarettes there was always a guy in the queue
who slightly remembered me. “Hey, aren’t you
... You are ... I know you from the movies,
what´s your name again?” And I thought, “Just
give me my
change so I can
get out of here.”
JS: What
worried you?
MR: It´s so fucking
embarrassing. And it´s better to never have been
somebody - than to have been somebody a long
time ago. You live in this state of shame. You
live in a city built on envy, you have been
fallen from grace, suddenly nobody envies you
anymore and you´re only met with regret. So you
try to hide the best way you can. When Darren
wanted me for the role, I instinctively knew why
he had set his mind on me. And deep inside I
knew what he wanted from me: to go to a dark and
painful place of my own life. He wanted ‑
literally ‑ my flesh and blood. And I thought:
Maybe it´s about time that I get going again. If
I want to have a second chance it will only be
through a director who got balls. But then it
looked like I was going to be replaced by
another actor. In a way I felt relieved. I
wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go there.
JS: Wait
a second: Why were you going to be replaced?
MR: They needed a
big star to finance the movie. Nobody wanted to
pay for my name. So I was out of it. But weeks
later I got a call and I was in again.
JS:You
must have felt relieved.
MR: No, not at all.
I was getting used to the way I was living my
life.
JS: But
something inside of you must have made you go
for the role?
MR: Luckily there
was still some kind of intelligence left,
because I realized this opportunity to win back
my position and my title. And when we finished
it, I just knew that we had made something
special. So I sat down and wrote a very long and
personal letter to Bruce Springsteen. I wanted
him to write a song, although I knew that we
didn’t have the money to pay for it. So I wrote
to him that this had been the toughest part I´ve
ever had, but at the same time the best role of
my career. And I wrote to him about my gratitude
for the 2, 3 people who had helped me to get to
grips with my life. During my lost years I´ve
broken off a lot of contacts, I haven´t talked
to Bruce for 13 years. And I wrote to him how
happy I was not to have turned into somebody
like Randy, although there were a lot of
indications that I would end up as hopeless and
burned out.
JS: When
did he respond to your letter?
MR: After a couple of
months. He called me one day late at night from his
tour in Europe. “Listen”, he said, “I´ve read your
screenplay and I wrote a little song for you.” He
really took the time to write this song, “The
Wrestler”, which at the end of the movie sums up the
core of the whole story. I must have listened to it
a hundred times and I´m always thinking: Wow, he
really nailed it. For me it was like a special
Christmas present. I am so grateful for this song.
He told Darren why he had written this song.
JS: Why?
MR:He said, “So Mickey can get back to where he
belongs.”