Shockingly, Rourke never won an Oscar for his role as a grizzled, old wrestler (cue trouty-faced pap snaps after the ceremony), but that certainly shouldn't detract from what was a stunning screen performance. Playing a fallen wrestling great, Rourke's likeable beefcake has to trawl the underground circuit to scrape together a living, picking up low-key (and often brutal) fights, with the highlight being a graphic 'hardcore' square-off involving staples and barbed wire - presumably filmed with minimal fake blood and REAL pain.

Expertly filmed in a stark and plaintative manner, coupled with cheese-free sentimentality, director Aronofsky's drama is a work of art. This DVD package is made doubly essential for an excellent Rourke interview and documentary. Watch it and sweat! And read our brilliant Q&A in the meantime...

Mickey Rourke Maxim Interview

Maxim: People say you’ve had plastic surgery…

MR: Don’t ask those stupid fucking questions. How big was the last cock you had in your mouth? Come on…

Maxim: How do you remember your ‘wild period’?

Mr: I don’t remember much of it. I was out of my mind then.

Maxim: You seem very respectful of the second chance you’ve got in Hollywood.

MR: Grateful. I had to have 12 years of therapy to realise that.  You know, my anger came out of something I was ashamed of when I was little, so when you become a man you don’t want to feel ashamed. It’s a lot easier to be angry. So you put on the muscle, you get strong, you handle yourself like a fucking mountain, nobody disrespects you. But the thing is, what happened to me was a long time ago, but I was making everybody the enemy. So this guy who worked with me taught me that,  ‘Mickey, the only war that is going on is in your head from a long time ago, not right now.’  I didn’t even know how to take care of things, you know? I didn’t meet nobody like that, I didn’t know how to fix what was wrong but I worked real hard to fix everything because I had no choice – because I had lost everything and I’m very lucky, that’s why. People say  ‘comeback’, fucking ‘comeback’. Fifteen fucking years… that’s too easy a word because you don’t know where I have been.

Maxim: Do you miss boxing?

MR: Terribly, yes. I do training but I’m not allowed to get hit in the head anymore because of the amount of years I fought, but yes, sure, I miss it. Fuck, yes.

Maxim: Your new movie, The Wrestler, is coming out soon. Are you pleased with it?

MR: It’s a movie I’m very proud of and happy to be here talking about: it’s easier to do the job when the movie is good and you don’t have to fake it.  You did a piece of shit and you still have to talk about it… I can’t do that.

Maxim: What did you do to get in shape?

MR: A lot of weights.

Maxim: Didn’t you go to wrestling school as well?

MR: For two-and-a-half months, we met for an hour-and-a-half a day, then two hours in the gym, putting on the weight to look big because all the wrestlers are big, fucking huge, and my body is not that fucking big next to these guys. I had to take a lot of vitamins and eat a lot.

Maxim: Legal vitamins?

MR: Yes. And push, push, push. It was nice because the trainer who trained me for the weight is an ultimate fighter. He’s very tough, so when I go to the gym and go,  ‘I don’t feel like it,’  he’s like,  ‘Fucking get over there!’ One time, I go out real late at night, he got the key to my hotel room and the concierge said,  ‘Your trainer is on his way up.’  I tried to put the cover over my head and get as small as I could, thinking that with the lights off, maybe he don’t see me in the bed, but he just shouts,  ‘I see you there, get your fucking ass down!’  So we had a lot of good people around us for the wrestling: the coaches, the trainers, the best stunt guy in the busines. Darren [Aronofsky, The Wrestler’s director] had the ring in his office, and he’d come in and watch and make comments. He’d never done a fucking thing for exercise, but bounce a tennis ball maybe, or bring his fork to his mouth, but he’d still go,  ‘No, no, no. Do it again.’  And the guy would go,  ‘Fuck you. You do it again, get out!’ As soon as we threw him out of rehearsal, everything moved on. Every day I used to go,  ‘I don’t want to hear Darren’s mouth.’   Yah, yah, yah, that’s all you got, you know?

Maxim: Did you and Aronofsky argue a lot?

MR: Fuck, we would argue, but it was fun and it worked out really nice. There was a lot of trust there. And we challenged each other and were able to do something very special. I was happy to go to work.

Maxim: Did you injure yourself during filming?

MR: Yeah, every day!  I had to have three MRIs in two months. When you get thrown, you’re thrown. We trained for three months for the wrestling, but it takes these guys seven to 10 years to learn all the moves, how to fall. These guys, they fall, they know how to land: me, I land like a fucking brick and I’m,  ‘Arrgghh!’  I go home like,  ‘That fucking Aronofsky, the motherfucker!’  I spent more time in three months in the doctor’s office than I ever did in 10 years of boxing.

Maxim: Was that a wig extension for the hair?

MR: For the hair, I am not telling you.

Maxim: Come on, tell us.

MR: No, that’s not your business.

Maxim: Is it extension or wig?

MR: No.

Maxim: OK, compared to boxing, is there a big element of pain in wrestling?

MR: It’s entertainment.

Maxim: How did you find that balance?

MR: At first I had no respect for the wrestlers because I went,  ‘That’s fake.’  But you learn that it’s a different form of entertainment. It’s a sport, because yes, you do get hurt, and you get hurt because you throw yourself around for the audience. But when you land, you really get fucked up. By the time they’re in their late 30s or 40s, most of them are half-crippled. I met so many wrestlers in wheelchairs or paralysed because they do it for 15 years; they kill themselves for the fans and at the end of the day they have no insurance, there’s nobody to look after them. They did it for the love, for the glory.

Maxim: Like gladiators.

MR: Yes, but it ‘s still entertainment. It’s choreographed like a ballet, you know? But I have respect for them now because I don’t compare it to boxing, it’s a totally different arena. It’s something by itself
that you can’t define. Almost like circus, you know.

Maxim: Aside from the fights, how was it working with Aronofsky?

MR: The relationship with Darren was really special. The way he worked, he gained my respect. I love the fact that he don’t compromise, you know? He has a very big brain, he has a lot of integrity with what he does and he doesn’t compromise. He doesn’t want to make a fucking big budget movie just for the dollars, which to me is very important. I found his first couple of movies interesting. The Fountain was shit but OK, fine, let’s move on and see what you’ve got because everybody has to fall on their ass. I knew after about 10 days, I said, ‘Wow, this is going to be the best fucking movie I ever made.’  This is the best fucking director I ever worked with since [Michael] Cimino, because he was tough like Cimino, he was fucking taking chances, he didn’t compromise and he knew how to push my buttons. I would do a scene and think,  ‘I got it.’  And then he would say,  ‘Do it again.’  I’d say,  ‘We just got it,’  and he’d say,  ‘Do it better.’ So he knew how to challenge me because his brain was so big. So he made me as good as I could be.

Maxim: Is it true that you called in a few favours when it came to the soundtrack?

MR: Well, when I used to box, I used to come out to the song  ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’  for my fighting. So I said I wanted to see if I could do that with the wrestling, too. We can’t afford Guns N’  Roses’  music on this film, so I called Axl [Rose]. Axl gave it to us because I wrote a letter, I said this is the best movie I ever did, it’s a lot of Darren, everybody knows who Darren is, you know, and what he is capable of, so Axl gave us fucking Guns N’  Roses. I mean, he gave us  ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’.

Maxim: Did you collaborate at all with the script on The Wrestler?

MR: Er, yes, I re-wrote all of my dialogue with Darren. Me and Darren.

Maxim: Did you ever write a script for the cinema?

MR: Yes, I have written a script. I have been working on it for 18 years: it’s called The Wild Horses but I can’t make it until I get myself back in the game, you know? I need to make it by next fall. That’s my goal, you know? We’ll see what happens.

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