He held his own with Robert De Niro, romped with Kim Basinger, stole the show in and was almost banished by Hollywood forever. A resurrected Mickey Rourke talks us through his turbulent career and unlikely comeback.

A parade of people filter into the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica. "Hey, you look like the guy," a gravelly voice says from behind me. Mickey Rourke is wearing a Gold's Gym tank top, jeans and visor. Except for the fact he smokes, he looks like the picture of health. His body makes him look like he's been training for a spot on the ill-fated show The Contender . This new and improved Rourke even has some old-school swagger.

Throughout the 1980's Mickey Rourke was the king of cool. In films like Rumble Fish, Angel Heart and 91/2 Weeks, he provided some of the best film moments in a decade known for mullets and Tom Cruise vehicles. But after gaining a reputation for being hard to work with, including fighting with producers and trouble with the law, Rourke slipped into a string of self-parodying roles (Wild Orchid, Another 91/2 Weeks), a face-altering stint as a boxer and time at the shrink's office. It's taken him years to shake his rep, yet with a gritty performance in Sin City and a turn as a bounty hunter in Domino, Rourke's proving big-time directors that he's back to his best. He's been tapped to star in the upcoming thriller Killshot (co-starring Diane Lane and Johnny Knoxville) and will reprise his role in Sin City 2. Rourke is now decidedly more evolved, introspective and producer-savvy, with all the right directors still in his corner. "Directors are always the ones who have come to my rescue," he says, "They always want to hire me. It's never the producers." He then reflects, "My best performance? I haven't done it yet. I haven't even come close, I just feel grateful that people are willing to hire me. The Weinsteins have offered me two movies. Those brothers have been really respectful to me and I'm gonna be respectful of them. I'm not gonna be a fuckin' jerk-off....again."

This being the new, respectful Mickey, he not only turned up on time, but also candidly walked us through some of our favorite Rourke performances.

Body Heat 1981
Rourke made a splash in Hollywood as the hyperkinetic arsonist Teddy Lewis in this steamy thriller of betrayal, lust and money starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. Although Rourke only has a small scene, his energy and charisma steal the end of the movie.

Mickey: " I had just come out to California after studying for six or seven years at the Actors Studio in New York. I was bouncing at some transvestite nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard and going on audition and nothing was happening. I went in to read for Body Heat and totally smoked it. They offered me $500 a day, but I said to my agent I wanted a $1000 a day. He said "Are you fucking kidding me? Every young actor in Hollywood wants this part!" And I said fuck it ! 'cause I know what kind of actor I am. We finally worked it out. I only worked two days and I don't have any memories other than really turning it on. The director Lawrence Kasdan, then wanted to hire me for a movie that he did about a whole bunch of yuppies ( Big Chill ), but it wasn't my cup of tea so I passed."

Rumble Fish 1983
Francis Ford Coppola's screen adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel about a street hoodlum gave Rourke the perfect vehicle to introduce his signature whisper delivery as the enigmatic Motorcycle Boy.

Mickey: " Francis Ford Coppola was directing us from the trailer, which was trippy, with Police drummer Steward Copeland by his side banging on the drums to get the beat going. Francis would write and we'd improvise on the spot. He'd talk to us through a microphone; he was having his issues and experimenting with not being on the set. Frances would use these sophisticated metaphors and most of the time I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. But no one ever spoke that way to me before, so it was cool. I respected him."
" One day he goes " OK, you're gonna steal this motorcycle and that's the one you'll ride." I go, "Francis, that's not a Harley Davidson. The guys back home aren't gonna talk to me if you make me get on the Jap piece of shit." Francis says "Mickey the Motorcycle Boy is beyond riding a Harley Davidson. He steals whatever it is. The thing is taking it and the ride."

91/2 Weeks 1986
Rourke's sadomasochistic John and Kim Basinger's Elizabeth embark on a psychosexual romp that exploded with erotic chemistry. Director Adrian Lyne created the seminal of the 1980s and sent couples scrambling to the cupboard for the honey.

Mickey: " I had my issues with the movie. I wanted it to transcend Last Tango in Paris but the producers didn't and that caused problems. When I first read the script it was a lot rawer that the film version we did. Adrian had made an incredible amount of money with Flashdance and there was that pressure to repeat it. I also think he was under strict orders to clean it up and make it more mainstream. I still think it was a very interesting film. I didn't know if at the time it was a direction Kim was able to go to in, but she delivered. It was hard getting her out of her trailer to go to work. Kim's a very private person. I think her representatives wanted her to make this film more than she wanted to make it. But there was nobody else around that looked like her, so they had do have her. I don't know if its was the easiest film for her to make a that point in her life."

Angel Heart 1987
Going mano a mano with Robert De Niro, Rourke's portrayal of the beleaguered P.I. Harold Angel displayed some of his most emotionally raw and charged work. Voodoo, murder, Satan and balmy New Orleans only accentuated Rourke's torturous portrayal of a man descending into hell.

Mickey: " At the time I got Angel Heart my reputation was terrible. One of the first things director Alan Parker said to me was, "You're not gonna misbehave on my set!" I really wanted the job because I was broke, so I tried to be good, but he caught me at the time in my career when I had really lost respect for acting. I started seeing all the politics involved in the movie business and I short-circuited. The studio had changed regimes and let The Pope of Greenwich Village fall in the toilet so I started to get angry. And I had so many issues about getting help that by the time I was doing Angel Heart I was a mess. I knew my lines, though, and I was prepared overtime because I was facing De Niro. His level of attention and concentration can be very intimidating. There was a lot going on there between us personally, but I really don't want to get into it because I have so much respect for him. Listen, when you work with somebody like De Niro you're either going to get smoked or you're going to step up to the plate. I stepped up to the plate."

Barfly 1987
A biopic based on the life of writer and alcoholic Charles Bukowski, Rourke played the lead role with such boozy scurffiness that it's hard to believe the only drinks he imbibed on set were protein shakes. Rourke and Faye Dunaway frolic from bar to bar with a Bonnie and Clyde lovability, giving the dark film some much-needed buoyancy.

Mickey: " I didn't want to make the movie. All the men in my family died in their 30s and 40s from drinking and I didn't even know who the fuck Charles Burkowski was. But the director chased me around England to do it, and then they sent me some books. I remember Faye was on the phone with her shrink for an hour before we started work everyday. I didn't know about shrinks back then, otherwise I would have been on the phone with a shrink, too. Barbet Schroeder, the director, even though he was a prick and a baby, knew exactly what he wanted. I remember thinking the day we began shooting. "What am I gonna do with this fuckin' piece?" Then as they were doing my makeup I was listening to Bukowski talk to my brother. I'm hearing his sing-songy, almost condescending voice. "Hey baby, how ya doing?" So I thought, I'm just gonna do that. The set was anarchy. I'd walk into the trailer at 7A.M. and Bukowski and my brother would be drinking beers. I'd go over to my ginseng, vitamins and protein shake and Bukowski would growl, "Hey have a beer." And I'd go "I don't want a fuckin' beer. Look at you two idiots drinking beer at 7A.M." The director would go, "Ugh, Joe ( my brother)'s a man, not you. I liked Bukowski. He was cool. He'd go, "Hey , we're making a movie, big fuckin' deal. Let's go get a beer."

Buffalo 66 1998
Having trouble getting hired because of his bad-boy reputation, Rourke's career was revived by director Vincent Gallo with a small role in the off-beat drama about the Buffalo Bills, kidnapping, jail and bookies. Rourke was part of a quirky ensemble that included Ben Gazzara, Angelica Huston, Christina Ricci and, Jan Michael Vincent.

Mickey: " I was flat broke because nobody would hire me. Vinnie called me up and said " Hey, I got this thing but you gotta learn it." Then he said, "Are you having trouble with the government?" I told him, "Yeah, I owe them a lot of money." He said, "What if I give you $100,000 in a paper bag and you come up for like four hours?" When my scene was over, Vinnie gave me a paper bag full of money and I got on a plane that afternoon. Vinnie's his own man. And the girls love him. Somebody said to me once "Look at fuckin' Vinnie. He doesn't drink. He comes to clubs at 1:30 A.M., right before its closing time and gets all the girls. He has it down to a science." Vinnie can talk a lot of crap but he's real smart. I told him he has to quit talking shit about people or he's going to end up on the bench with me one day."

Animal Factory 2000
In perhaps the most bizarre twist in his career, Rourke played Jan the actress, a perky transvestite in the Steve Buscemi-directed prison tale.

Mickey: " Steve Buscemi asked me if I wanted to play a transvestite and I thought he was kidding me. It was only one day's work and I was broke again so I was like, "What the fuck?" I lost 18 pounds and took my bridge out ? I did it with my front teeth out. Back in the day when I worked in a club I noticed all transvestites were toothless, cause they ended up getting punched out all the time. I went and got a French manicure and got my eyes done and everything. I even flew on the plane like that. At the airport there was a little kid in and he looked up at me and started crying. When I got to the set I went over to Steve and said, "Hello Steve." He looks up at me confused. And I say "Steve it's Mickey!" And he went, "Holy Fuck.!""

Sin City 2005
In the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City, Rourke steals the show as Marv, an indestructible human tank looking for vengeance.

Mickey: " We worked against a green screen most of the time and Robert Rodriquez, the director, is there instead of the actors. Fuck the green screen, but just go with the flow. The set looked like NASA with all the computers and shit.
Robert would walk around the set strumming a Fender guitar, with his cowboy hat and his boots and he would come over and say "Could you do it a little like this?" He's a million miles away and he tells you exactly what he needs to tell you and he's playing some tune that he's trying to put together for the movie. He would go off and write and after lunch he'd come back, 40 minutes later, and have this fucking dialogue that other writers I've know couldn't come up with after going off for two weeks. I mean, how can you not love a guy who wears a Stetson and plays guitar? He has everything but the fucking horse and the gun belt. We shot Sin City in Austin, Texas. I'm moving there as soon as my lease is up. Rodriquez is the king of Austin, Maybe I'll be the queen.