Mickey Rourke’s comeback story is pretty much firmed in the cement now. His appearance at New York Film Festival Q&A for “The Wrestler” with director Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei only won over more converts to this tale and if there were any Academy voters in the room, well, hell, he won them over too with a mix of grace, humility, wisdom, but still wounded toughguy notes. The dude is also still refreshingly candid and maybe even off-color.
Surely, he’s a picture-lock for an Oscar nomination (as if he wasn’t before; but you could feel the room and the love).
Reuters and Defamer have both pulled a lot of the choice quotes already which helps us with the heavy lifting and we have first-hand video below if you want to see him and the cast in all their unedited, unadorned glory.
The juicy quote everyone seems to grabbing for is the sort of implicit suicide allusions in his words about his darkest period when his career was on the skids. Change was the big theme of Rourke’s, at times emotional, response to how he felt about his comeback and the near death of his career.
“I didn’t wanna change until I lost everything until I realized that you better change, or, you know, blow your fucking brains out.”
Rourke said he had realized he had fucked up and it would be a while before things got better.
“I mean, if I knew it would take me 15 years to get back in the saddle and work again because of the way I handled things, I really would have handled things differently,” he told the crowd. “I just didn’t have the tools. I’m doing things differently this time around — understanding what it is to be a professional, be responsible and to be consistent. Those are things that weren’t in my vocabulary back then. Change for me didn’t come easy; I didn’t wanna change until I lost everything until I realized that you better change, or, you know, blow your fucking brains out. Either you change and go on with life, or you’re just a piece of shit.”
He continued about his personal discovery in the ensuing years.
“Everything I felt was that I would be weak — that it was a weakness to change, for the armor that I put on my whole life. I was too proud to change, because my strength at the time was a weakness. I’m all right with it now, and yeah, it took me 15, 16, 17 years out of the game. But it’s really nice, because I get to come back and work with these people here.”
Rourke claims he’s learned about his mistakes and most importantly now knows how to be a professional and treat the acting gig as a real job.
“I’m doing things differently this time around, understanding what it is to be professional, be responsible, to be consistent — those were things that weren’t in my vocabulary back then.”
The actor, who kept echoing the sentiments that Aronofsky is a demanding, “tough” and “relentless” director, also said he discovered a newfound respect for profesional wrestlers and the real and brutal punishment their bodies take night after night. He also had tons of praise for “The Wrestler” itself.
“I can honestly say (“The Wrestler”) is the best movie I ever made and the hardest movie I’ve ever made, and I was so God damn thankful the day we were done with it,” he said. “I’m no spring chicken and this would be hard for a 20 year-old to do.”
We’ve got video of the entire event, but here’s the best material so far.