The Resurrection Of Mickey Rourke
By: Steve Garbarino
Photos by Sante D; Orazio
Maxim Magazine
December 2008

   For a decade he was as good as dead. But his performance in, “The Wrestler”, the hair-trigger actor has risen again. Will he triumph, or go down in flames.

    On a muggy Sunday afternoon in late September, deep in-side the frankincense-heavy rectory of 42nd Street’s Holy Cross Church, Father Peter Colapietro is touring me through the skeletal wreckage of his kitchen, burnt recently in an electrical fire by “some idiot.” Father Pete suggests we go out to a nearby restaurant, “throw down a belt” of Rebel Yell, and “blow some smoke.” His church is poor by Manhattan standards despite its1852 vintage. It’s a ragged, grand red-brick slice of sanctuary for the down and out between soup-line Hell’s Kitchen and the triple-X remnant of Times Square. The priest is concerned about how to pay for the reconstruction of his church, which he calls the “crossroads of the world.” But he’s seen worse damaged goods. Like Mickey Rourke, his friend and parishioner, who after a sudden return to the spotlight spurred by a critically lauded comeback role in Darren Aronofsky’s epic new anti-Rocky drama, The Wrestler, now finds himself at a crossroads of his own: one of staying committed to rebuilding his life and career or letting it fall to pieces again. “Comeback?” says the actor. “When people come up to me and say, ‘You’re back,’ I say, ‘Brother, you don’t know where I’ve been.’” Ten years ago the straggly Method performer—who throughout the 1980s scene-robbed and owned such indelible films as Diner, Rumble Fish, Barfly, and The Pope of Greenwich Village, but whose acting career was outweighed and beaten to a pulp by an on-again, off-again professional boxing career, a mutually abusive marriage (to sultry supermodel Carré Otis, from 1992 to 1998), snot flings with gossip columnists, Miami Beach goon-squadding, exploding cheekbones, movie-set walk-offs, and basic don’t-you-know-who-I-am Assholery 101—had entered the church like a man without a home, requesting the presence of a man of the cloth.Father Pete knew who he was, despite “it taking me 15 times to watch Angel Heart [Rourke’s 1987 film about devil pacts, costarring Robert De Niro as Lucifer] and still not understand what the fuck was going on.” “It was Mickey Rourke, and Mickey Rourke was in trouble,” says the priest, a robust, expletive-spouting Bronx native. “He needed someone to talk to. He needed an anchor. I told him that we are all our own worst enemies. But Mickey was fighting the Axis powers in his head: Germany, Japan, and Italy. I can’t go deeper than that. ”Rourke, however, can. Recalling one of his lowest moments, he says, “I was about to commit two mortal sins.” His career in a stranglehold, his billfold empty, his wife walking, his gold-plated Rolls-Royce, motorcycles, and other toys sold off to pay bills, he was living in rentals and hotel rooms, looking for lost love and a good day’s work. Having come off such lamentable oil spillage as 1997’s Dennis Rodman–costarring lark Double Team, as well as the 1991 big-budget bomb Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and the camp-porno follow-up to 9½ Weeks, Wild Orchid (costarring his future wife, Otis), he was seriously contemplating suicide. That was the first mortal sin. The second: He was planning to murder, as he puts it, “a guy who raped Carré when she was on heroin and beat her up.”

   “He needed someone to talk to, someone nonjudgmental,” recalls Father Pete. “That’s what confession is about. He admitted he had fucked up his relationship with his wife. He had something written down, a letter he’d written to Carré—a note of a reconciliatory nature. I told him, ‘Let’s fold it up and put it behind the statue of Saint Jude.’ He went straight to the statue. That was a good sign.” Saint Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes. “He’s the guy to talk to when things seem totally hopeless and you need an intercession by God,” says Father Pete. Rourke lit a candle for a prayer, then tucked his note behind the wooden sculpture of the saint, within the dimly lit sanctuary. Father Pete told him, “This isn’t magic. But God loves you, and in the end, no matter how long it takes, He will give you the strength you need.” Then the priest and the actor went back to the rectory to drink red wine and smoke cigarettes. Fast-forward back to this rainy September day and inside the church: Father Pete and I search for Rourke’s note to Otis from so long ago. We find several other hopeless-cause notes, but Rourke’s is long gone, just like Otis herself. Rourke, however, is still around, still in contact with the priest. Father Pete heard from him a day before our meeting at Holy Cross, and he says of the actor, “He sounds better than he has in years!” But he still sounds concerned. “Still, he’s worrying about falling apart.“ I’ll pray for him,” says the priest, “I really will.”

   Mickey Rourke truly had it all: fancy cars, hot supermodel wife, Hollywood Hills compound, entourage of adulators, and one of the most promising careers since Nicholson and Brando. Rising out of the ghetto in South Florida, moving to New York, then La-La, he landed his first notable short role in 1981’s neo-noir Body Heat while working at a drag queen bar in Hollywood. As a charismatic arsonist, he easily overshadowed the stars, William Hurt and Kathleen Turner - catapulting his career forward on the A-list train. That was the ’80s, his golden years. With his Irish good looks, mischievous smile, and world-weary eyes - always spelling trouble - his talent lay in making character roles leads. But he fought with directors, made scenes at nightclubs, got arrested for stupid things. In 1991, after one flop too many, he made the unprecedented and ill-conceived move of leaving Hollywood to become a professional boxer. He wasn’t bad. He won some big matches over a five-year career, but destroyed his Hollywood looks. Reconstructive surgery contributed to his somewhat waxen appearance today. “I don’t watch my films. I hate watching myself,” he says. “I haven’t seen The Wrestler, and I don’t plan to, either.” Rourke’s downfall occurred simultaneously with his marriage to Otis. It was tumultuous tabloid fodder up until its final, ugly flame-out in 1998. The money, the friends, the love life, the looks, the career, all gone. But now the gods appear to be favoring him again. Ever since the Venice International Film Festival awarded its highest honor to The Wrestler—the New Jersey–set drama about a washed-up 1980s ring champion named Randy “the Ram” Robinson, attempting a second round in his career and troubled life—the accolades for Rourke’s starring performance have made him a likely candidate for the Best Actor Oscar. His ravaged, self-effacing role in the film (costarring Marisa Tomei as an aging stripper with a heart of gold and Evan Rachel Wood as Rourke’s estranged lesbian daughter) has brought him the best reviews of his life. Variety offered up a sample rave: “Rourke creates a galvanizing, humorous, deeply moving portrait that instantly takes its place among the great, iconic screen performances.” Harvey Weinstein, whose production company gave Rourke his first career jump-start with 2005’s graphic-novel adaptation of Sin City, says of the new film, “It’s one of those epic pictures that really move you. This is a winner for Mickey—maybe the winner. He’s really pulling out the stops. ”And in his real life Rourke seems to be making the right moves as well. He left the place that ostracized him, Hollywood, for the place that first embraced him, New York City, “where it all began.” And so with the comeback film of a bone-crushing lifetime, the magnificent disaster that is—or was—Mickey Rourke is witness to his own resurrection. But is the pugilist finally at rest? Can he overcome his own worst enemy—himself? Rise up, and stay there? Or fuck up, and go nowhere? The stakes are bigger than just a career.

   The sacred and the profane mix like holy water and Red Bull at the West Village home of Mickey Rourke. His first-floor walk-up is in a turn-of-the-century brownstone located on a block where no-name neighbors walk their dogs but celebrities come and go from two venerable hot spots a bottle’s throw away, including the Waverly Inn, where Rourke holds court at his own table a couple of nights a week. Rourke’s choice of neighborhood seems premeditated: close enough to harm’s way, easy enough to bring the party home or leave it behind. And in choosing the digs, he’s created a sort of sequel to The Pope of Greenwich Village. Neighbors shout out to him but don’t take pictures. He stops to talk, patting their dogs, calling them “handsome” or a “real looker.” He purrs, “Ooh-la-laah!” when a pretty girl walks by. “We know everyone from six brownstones down from the left to the right,” he says in his deep, tough-guy voice. “We know everybody by their first name, and everyone’s got a dog.” And there is history: “The West Village is the first place that I landed 20-something years ago, a few streets down. It’s like I’m back in my nabe. I never knew my neighbors for 15 years in L.A.—not one of them. I hate that fucking city! I hated it the first day I got there, and I hated it the last day I was there.” His Manhattan stoop, in our interviews, becomes the in-plain-sight confessional, the portal for inward-thinking, self-analysis, self-doubts, where the tape recorder runs freely. Inside the brownstone, the taping often stops, a bawdy dude-party atmosphere dominates, and what his therapist of more than a decade, Dr. Steve, might call “arrested development” prevails. Rourke has always been a guy’s guy, and a loner when not. The body-building, the biker fixation, the bar brawls; he’s a living Fonzie, lots of bravado laced with nostalgia, defending honor, and being a man. The “bad men” he used to hang with notoriously in L.A. and Miami - outlaw motorcycle gang members, pilot-fish henchmen milking him of his money, hipster hairstylists, losers of all walks - are out of the picture. “I don’t travel with a bodyguard anymore,” he says. “I jump in a fucking cab when I go out.” His new-old posse are people he’s known for years who have stuck by him through the lean ones. “What it’s all about in the end,” he says, “is giving and sharing and being supportive, even when you’re down, you know?” One pal, a shaved-head bodybuilder named Scott Siegel, drops by one night carrying a black tank of whey protein the size of a mini-keg for Mickey’s use. He’s a shy guy, a gentle giant, but makes a standout cameo in The Wrestler as a drug dealer, grocery-listing the intricate names of his black-market steroids and painkillers to the Ram. Says Rourke in his oft-kilter but fond way: “He’s the biggest Jew on the planet! He may not be as big as Harvey Weinstein” - another pal - “but he’s big!” Rourke’s friend of 20 years J.P. Parlavecchio lives with him in his downstairs apartment, “taking care of my shit,” says Rourke. He handles his daily schedule, making sure he makes meetings, preparing gourmet meals for Rourke’s many diminutive pets. Wearing his signature fedora, J.P. looks like a guy you’d see placing bets at a Tampa greyhound track. “Mickey and I are old-school people,” says Parlavecchio, who once owned bars and restaurants in New York and Miami. All are gone now. “We believe in trust and friendship. You treat your friends the same, whether they’re on top or on the bottom. I always tell Mickey the truth, whether he likes it or doesn’t.” Says Rourke: “I like J.P. because he’s a Chihuahua lover.” Then later he adds, “J.P. knew me when I was crazier than a fucking loon! I went through a period where I lost my house, my wife, my credibility, my career, my entourage, and what have you. And when you are sinking, the rats jump off the boat, you know? But even through all the crazy times, J.P. was always there for me. When I didn’t want to be bothered, I could go sit and eat in his restaurants.” He often chose a table in their kitchens. “And if I didn’t want to leave my room, he’d send over the kid with some lasagna.”

   Most of his celebrity friends aren’t actors, but iconic musicians—outsiders like himself, from Bob Dylan and Axl Rose (who Rourke says provided, free of charge, Guns n’ Roses’ hit song “Sweet Child o’ Mine” for his film) to Bruce Springsteen, who wrote the evocative title song to The Wrestler for a nominal fee. “If I could have another brother,” Rourke says of Springsteen, “I’d pick him.”

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  Contrary to his big-spender days, Rourke often eats at home now, surrounded by six dogs of varying sizes, all small. They clearly rule the roost, along with a few guy friends. He permits himself a blowout one night a week, typically Thursdays. Sundays are “Mexican night” at the Rourke household. On one such September evening, he invites me over to join in the revelry of takeout burritos and tacos, downed with Coronas regularly knocked off the coffee table or over on the parquet floors by his excitable pets. One might expect Rourke to live in a glass box of a place, like his apartment of ’80s excess in 9½ Weeks. Or perhaps the ultimate bachelor pad, with black silk sheets, mirrored ceilings, and a built-in wet bar. But the two-story apartment is done up like a fancy boudoir right out of New Orleans’ well-heeled Garden District, and it suits Rourke, who lived in the city while filming Angel Heart. Everywhere are framed photographs of his heroes: his brother, Hells Angels captains, the boozing, brilliant actor Richard Harris. There’s a sexy nude of his ex-wife, Otis, that he shot in Tahiti. Ornate chandeliers cast shadows upon Rourke’s visage and share space with a built-in punching bag and a bench press. A gilt-edged portrait of his prized dog, Loki, hangs where a family portrait might preside in another home, high above a marble fireplace. But there are also touches an interior designer might not quite approve of, such as the anatomically correct rubber dildo that is suction-cupped to a parlor wall. On Mexican night, an attractive blonde-haired female friend sitting on a black leather sofa next to Rourke nibbles on nachos, feigning obliviousness to the prop jutting from the wall, inches from her face. “That’s Little Mickey,” emphasizes Rourke. On a shelf in the bedroom, an arsenal of sex toys that would give Robin Byrd pause awaits somebody or other. Rourke, dressed comfortably casual in a flannel shirt and jeans, points to the stripper pole ensconced in the main room. It was incorporated there as a centerpiece when he moved in several months ago. But so far no bites from female visitors. Like the sex toys, it’s more theater than action. He pauses. “I’m waiting for the right girl to come in and say, ‘You wanna see something?’”                                                      *****************

   Rourke isn’t seeing anyone seriously now. Going out at night, he often orders iced teas instead of liquor. Not that he’s happy about it, but he says he has to stay “focused.” “I’ve never had a drug or alcohol problem. But that’s an easy hook to lay on somebody,” he says. “For a period, I was married to someone who was a drug addict, so it’s easier for me to be labeled that. ”I mention AA, and he shouts, “Fuck AA! I don’t believe in it. But I think it’s real easy to label somebody. It’s like labeling a chick with blonde hair and big tits a bimbo.” Rourke says he only indulges in alcohol after midnight. One of his many text messages reads, “Discipline. Discipline.” Later he confides, “My problem has always been my anger. ”Rourke seems resigned to bachelorhood, being with his pals, a noncommittal date. While his career seems to be moving forward, fast, he lives in the past, and welcomes it. Like a good Catholic boy, he believes that suffering brings redemption of sorts. Dominating the living room is a candlelit shrine, complete with snapshots, surrounding a statue of the Virgin Mary. It is a requiem to his beloved younger brother, Joe - a good-looking, bearded biker who, Rourke says, “is the inspiration for everything I do.” He died on October 6, 2004 from cancer. When he passed, Rourke held him in his arms, on his deathbed, assured him it was OK for him to go. Rourke later tossed his ashes into the sea, where he says he heard Joe’s voice and saw a flash of blue light. “I just stood at the foot of the ocean and screamed. Then I went back to my hotel room and drank a bottle of whiskey. ”Now when he sees a blue light anywhere, he believes that Joey is with him, cueing him in. It happened when Axl Rose sang “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” at a concert and gave Joe a shout-out. Rourke bawled with tears. “I couldn’t stop shaking. ”He tours me through the denlike basement room where J.P. lives and points to a framed black-and-white photo of four-year-old Joe Rourke being pushed in a wheelbarrow by five-year-old Mickey—always the protector. The photo was taken at the Schenectady, New York house of his grandmother. “Those were the happy times,” says Rourke. “But they only lasted five years.” J.P. says, “Well, you’re smiling now.” As Rourke points at his Memory Lane wall, you see the word "JOE" spelled out in oxidized ink block letters on a finger. The tattoo can be seen in The Wrestler, not by accident.The loss of Carré from his life was his first heartbreak; Joe, his second. The two inform all he does and doesn’t do. “Being alone has now become like a way of life,” he says on his steps one night, smoking a Marlboro Red. “I can’t foresee myself living in the same house with somebody.” That is, a girlfriend or wife or child. “I have my dogs, and you know what? You couldn’t give me $10 million a piece for them. “I had a relationship in which I loved the woman from here and beyond,” he continues. “But it was a destructive one. We were both damaged goods at the time.”On the subject of having children, Rourke says, “People say to me, ‘You don’t have kids?’ And I go, No. A guy like me? I could never have a kid, because, you know, it’s like, maybe I’d want one, but I would never¼” He trails off. “The worst thing I could do as a human being would be to have a kid, be living with some woman, get a divorce, and have my son or daughter live with some other man. After what happened to me, I couldn’t do that.”

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   What happened to Mickey Rourke was that he was born into a broken, abusive family in Schenectady, along with his younger brother and sister. Rourke says he recalls seeing his father only twice: at age six and, 20 years later, at 26. “He was a carpenter. And he was a bodybuilder, back when it was freaky to be one.” He left the family when they were very young. “My father drank himself to death at 47,” says Rourke, who nonetheless is proud enough of his pop to dig up a black-and-white of the handsome, muscular man, shirtless and holding Rourke at age two. His father once held the title of Mister New York, USA. His mother remarried, reportedly a cop, and when Rourke was still a child, the family moved to Liberty City, in Miami, a town known for its high crime rate. The years there would become his own personal hell. “He was the guy that did all the shit to me when I was little¼certain physical shit that happened when I was too small to defend myself. “The atrocities that happened in that house I lived in were so nightmarish, I later surrounded myself with bad people, really bad people. Jails are filled with people that can’t function because of what happened to them. But, you know, I’ve never wanted to be a victim. ”Rourke wanted to be a baseball player, and he was very good at it, as he was with all sports, including football and boxing. But, he says, “You can’t concentrate on hitting a curveball when you’ve got Halloween III going on at home. I had no discipline because of all the chaos at home. I had no support. No concentration. “I came from a very disorganized—I’m not going to say dysfunctional, because it was beyond dysfunctional¼I can’t even put a word to it. I just never had any encouragement from anybody. ”In the past Rourke has said that he got into acting after auditioning for and landing a role in a Jean Genet play at the University of Miami. His performance was well-received, and it certainly provided the impetus to an acting career. But, he says, the reality was that he had to get out of Dodge to stay alive. “I didn’t run to New York City because I couldn’t wait to be an actor. I ran there because I was with a group of boys down in Liberty City, and we found ourselves on the short end of a gunfight, OK? I’m only 18, and it was just some monkey business gone wrong. ”More specifically, he says, “It was a drug deal that turned into a ripoff. And bullets were flying. And, let’s put it this way, our guns were smaller than theirs, OK? I realized I wasn’t going to live long in this line of work. I didn’t feel right doing it. It’s nice playing those kinds of people in movies, but in real life it sucks. Because when you’re shooting at somebody, your hand is shaking. ”Cut to New York City, where Rourke decided to go for broke, ending up at the Actors Studio, still carrying his suitcase and bags. “A guy there said, ‘Well, I think you should get a room first.’ I said, Oh, yeah¼OK.” There he began studying the Method, alongside such colleagues as Christopher Walken, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Harvey Keitel. “Looking around in that little tiny building and seeing these guys? I shook in my fucking dirty blue jeans. I mean, those were the gods. They were the role models, and they still are. I decided to give acting a year.” Now he’s one of them, suddenly being recalled by many who had dismissed him as a goner.

   Rourke’s dogs are like him: goners given up on by others. And the deal is this: Do not mess with them, do not ask him, “What’s with the Chihuahuas, dude?” If you do you will find yourself on all fours, barking an apology, eating from a straw. But should you run into the actor on the street and wonder about their pedigree, here’s a brief history of the contestants:
1. Loki, a.k.a., Number 1.: Travels the world with Mickey, and is the daughter of Beau Jack the Great (R.I.P.). Mickey’s best friend on the planet, Loki is the last surviving member of a litter of seven. Loki is 15 years old and is a Chihuahua terrier.
2. Jaws the Enforcer, a.k.a. Guapo (“handsome” in Spanish): Rescued from an East L.A. street gang. Listed as “unadoptable” in a pound holding 79 dogs. When he held the snarling dog, it bit his lip, giving him two stitches. An hour later Mickey took Jaws home. Real name (God’s honest): Little Mickey. Jaws is six years old and is a white terrier, albeit a plump one.
3. Ruby, a.k.a. Ruby Baby: four times adopted and returned by unhappy owners—diagnosed with something unpronounceable, Ruby destroyed $4,000 worth of Mickey’s shoes and 36 pairs of designer sunglasses in her first month living with him. Now the sweetest and most gentle of the “kids,” Ruby is five years old and is a white Alaskan mini-Pomeranian.
4. La Negra, a.k.a. Fat Bastard: Rescued from a divorced couple, her brother eaten by coyotes, La Negra has insomnia (like her owner). She is four years old and is a black pug. She likes to watch late-night TV.
5. Bella, a.k.a. Bella Loca: Rescued in Texas on a movie set, she was found with glass stuck in her head and imbedded in her stomach and a nail in her neck. She has bad legs. She is 13 years old and is a Chihuahua terrier.
6. Peppino, a.k.a. Taco Bell: With an apple head and oversize ears, Peppino was a Christmas gift from Mickey to J.P. two years ago. She is two years old and is a chocolate-brown Chihuahua. “They fill a gap,” explains Rourke of his pound of portly miniatures, oft the objects of puzzlement. “My bed’s never empty. I look forward to coming home and seeing the kids. When I travel to Europe or wherever, Loki’s always with me. She’s like a giant Xanax, you know? I’m not going to get religious on your ass, but I truly believe God created dogs for a cause. They are the greatest companions a man could ever have. For 20 years it’s been Chihuahua City for me. ”Rourke’s litter eat well, often better than he does. To that effect J.P., an experienced chef, keeps them on an unrestricted diet, providing nightly specials, including,
Monday: Boiled chicken breast with rice and veggies.
Tuesday: Ground sirloin with brown rice and carrots.
Wednesday: Boiled Sabrett hot dogs with shredded cheddar cheese.
Thursday: Grilled pork chops with mixed vegetables and rice.
Friday: Grilled chicken breast with brown rice and potatoes.
Saturday: McDonald’s cheeseburgers, no buns, no pickles.
Sunday: Tuna fish with mixed veggies.
Note: Snacks include beef jerky, pizza, peanut butter, Chinese spare ribs, ice cream; Loki drinks Smartwater (“for its extra electrolytes”).

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   To Rourke, good things do not happen to those who wait, and nothing is handed to you. It’s an Irish Catholic thing. To some, there was a brush fire, which started this decade, steadily growing under his anemic career, beginning with his eerily moving role as a transvestite inmate in Steve Buscemi’s 2000 prison drama Animal Factory. The next year his role as a grieving father, opposite Jack Nicholson in Sean Penn’s bleak The Pledge, caught critics’ eyes. And the flames rose higher with his performance as a prosthetics-enhanced vigilante named Marv in Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s Sin City. And still he is often his own worst enemy. He nearly passed on Darren Aronofsky’s offer for him to play Randy the Ram. “He was tentative,” says Aronofsky. “Boxers have a resistance to wrestling. They see it as fake, suspect. But when he started to meet with some of the old guys, he saw there was real art to it, and was impressed with their universe. ”To hear Rourke tell it, he feared the wrestling part would kill him and, more so, that it would call for him to dig “too far into my dark places.” Aronofsky, a longtime fan of Rourke’s, always had him in mind for the role. “I wanted an actor that had been through the mill a bit,” says the director, who then laid down rules Rourke had to follow or the deal was off: Stay out of the nightclubs, give 100 percent, nothing less. And two major caveats: Rourke couldn’t get paid, initially, and he had to do all his own stunts, abiding to the naturalism Aronofsky was striving for. “Mickey’s a shy guy down deep, embarrassed of his gifts, and he spends a lot of time running from them,” he says. Rourke, who has countless injuries from boxing and high school football, was thrown into two months of daily training. While not working out and being slammed to the mat by actual professional wrestlers, he was staying in seedy New Jersey hotels around Asbury Park, one of the settings of the low-budget film. There were zero frills. His physical trainer, an ex-Israeli army commando, was paid even before Rourke. Some thought it would be easy for him, having been an athlete all his life. He had to put on nearly 40 pounds of muscle, shooting from 190 to 228 pounds. It was grueling. “When we wrapped, I had a mini physical breakdown for four days,” he says. But there were no complaints. “I heard Darren had a real large brain. I heard he did not compromise. I heard he was his own man. He told me how I had ruined my career for the past 15 years by my behavior. He said, ‘You can’t disrespect me. You have to listen to everything I tell you.’ And I go, OK. This guy has a lot of balls. This is the kind of guy I want to work for. He said, ‘If you do all those things, we’ll go to the show.’” The “show” is the Oscars. The result: “He just completely surrendered. He was completely present. I can’t think of any other actor where it comes so naturally.” The director says he couldn’t have asked for more, but with Rourke, getting the approval of other wrestlers, and even their fans, was just as important. For one scene Rourke wrestled an opponent in front of a rabid group of 1,500 real wrestling fans. “At best we thought we could get this actor to imitate a pro wrestler,” says Douglas Crosby, the stunt coordinator. “Instead, he became one in every possible way of the imagination. He left the real audience dumbfounded. He was performing sophisticated maneuvers that only the highest echelon of wrestlers consider attempting.” Says Afa Anoa’i, a.k.a. the Wild Samoan, Rourke’s head wrestling trainer, “He’s the type of guy that wants to go, go, go! He has that look and that craziness. He walked into the locker room and just dropped his pants, like one of the boys. And he learned to respect our sport. He went beyond, pulled some challenging moves. And he’s got a very bad knee. But he said to me, ‘I’m going to do this one for you, Pops,’ and he sure did.” Rourke’s coach on the set, Tommy Farra, says, “I never dealt with any actors. I thought he’d be a pain or a pansy. Maybe a little bit of both. Actors have that reputation. But I was pleasantly surprised. He took to wrestling with relative ease, and was an incredibly nice guy. I’m being honest. I know a lot of wrestlers who couldn’t pull off what he did.”

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