Rourke's Resurrection

Tell me about the scene where your character, Ram, cuts his face to make the match look more real. I’ve heard you used a real razor and director Darren Aronofsky didn’t know you were going to do it.

Who told you that? Darren? He’s full of shit.

He told me the day he met me, he says, “Do you know what gigging is?” And I say, “No.” And he says, “It’s when [wrestlers] cut themselves with a razor.” And I’m thinking, “Whoa, that’s far out. I don’t know if I could cut myself if I’m not pissed off.”

He said, “I’m going to want you to go all the way with this stuff, even the gigging.”

But he never brought it up after that first conversation. Darren had no idea that I was going to do it, nor did he ask for me to do it. It really hurt because I wasn’t angry. It was really nice because all the real wrestlers in the dressing room gave me a standing ovation for gigging.

Darren has said he always wanted you for The Wrestler. But actually, you were removed from the film for a time, Nicolas Cage was hired, and then he stepped aside and you came back. What happened?

Hey, Nic’s a big movie star. I understood the politics and I’ve got to actually say I was relieved. I thought, I don’t want to fucking go to them dark places that I’d have to go to emotionally, and all of the physical stuff. David, my agent, was devastated.

[After Cage bowed out and Rourke shot the film] I received a text from Nic in Toronto saying, “Congratulations, The Wrestler was always yours to begin with.”  Nic really took the high road and was a real gentleman.

Despite your reputation, you have a lot of people who want to see you do well. Tell me about the “special thanks” at the end of the film to Axl Rose.

When I used to box, I used to come out to “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” I know Axl pretty well and I called him. I told him we didn’t have no money, you know. It was a low budget, and Axl was very generous and he pretty much gave us the song and did me a personal favor. 

Some time after my brother Joey had died, I went to Madison Square Garden to see Guns N’ Roses. My favorite song is “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and Axl, out of nowhere, just went, “Hey, Mickey, this is for Joey.” And he just murdered the fucking song. I remember just sitting there shaking like a leaf.

How did the Bruce Springsteen song that plays over the end credits come about?

Springsteen? I just got off the phone with him two minutes before you called!

Okay, we did the movie and realized, once again, we ain’t got no money for music. (Laughs.) But what I did know about six days into shooting is this is gonna be the best movie I ever did and the best performance I ever gave. So I had no qualms about…you know, I’ve known Bruce for twenty odd years and keep in touch with him here and there. So I wrote him a letter and I told him about this and said, “If you ever have any time, could you take a look at it?”

Bruce had just lost two thirty-year members of his group (including Terry, his tour manager). A couple months passed and I was back in Miami and in the middle of the night, I get a phone call from Bruce from Europe. He said, “Hey man, I read the script and I got something in my head that I wrote.”

So then, he was playing again up in the Meadowlands. Darren and him were talking and Bruce had an acoustic guitar and picked it up and played the song for Darren. I’m going, “Fuck, this is cool as shit,” and I heard some of the song. Then a couple of days later he sent me the song, and it was just fucking incredible.