Interview

 In Bob Dylan's memoir, Chronicles, Volume One, he recalls a trip to the movies he took in 1988 while recording his album Oh Mercy, when he went to see Mickey Rourke in Homeboy, a film about a small-time boxer whose passion and petulance prove self-destructive. Dylan offers this account of Rourke's performance in the film, which the actor, a former boxer himself, also had a hand in writing: "He could break your heart with a look. The movie traveled to the moon every time he came onto the screen. Nobody could hold a candle to him. He was just there, didn't have to say hello or goodbye."

   While Dylan might not be as revered a film critic as he is a songwriter, he is certainly onto something here. A lot of actors talk about being influenced by Marlon Brando, but Rourke is really the only one who practices a comparable brand of voodoo. Cool and combustible in Rumble Fish (1983). Indelible in Body Heat (1981). Magnetic in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984). Dangerous in 9½ Weeks (1986). A Dylanesque antihero in Homeboy. Rourke seems to have a genetic predilection to stick his finger in the socket-sometimes in life as much as on the screen. Mickey Rourke: motorcycle loner; professional fighter; squanderer of talent; creature of cheap motels and ill-lit bars; a hundred miles of bad road. Mickey Rourke turns down Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Mickey Rourke says no to Pulp Fiction (1994). Mickey Rourke and Carré Otis in Wild Orchid (1990). Mickey Rourke gets arrested. Mickey Rourke gets back in the ring. Whether it was hubris or humility that drove Rourke to walk away from acting 17 years ago and resume the boxing career he began as a teenage welterweight out of Miami, only to return a decade and several concussions later with his hat in hand and little goodwill on his side, the fact remains that the film industry, despite its lack of anything resembling conventional wisdom, can sometimes show flashes of unwitting intelligence and allow a second act. Because actors like Mickey Rourke don't come along once in a generation, let alone twice. So here's round two, or is it 10, with the championship contender humbled, through the ringer, looking for one more chance, asking for another shot. And because it's cheaper to buy low than to buy high. And because sequels are good business. And because everybody loves a good redemption story.

   In Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (2008), Rourke plays a onetime titan of the tights who now lives in a trailer park and, with a weakened heart and a body ravaged by years of flying elbows and steroid use, is out for some redemption of his own. Watching Rourke onscreen now-older, odder, beefier, his features more rugged from years of fighting and surgery-is actually strangely comforting, like some great wrong has been righted, even if the wrong in question was in part his own doing. He looks more physically imposing, but gentler in a way. He also seems somehow to have more power, some of it magic and some of it tragic, doing the kind of work he was meant to do, the kind of work people wanted him to do, the kind of work other people can't do-at 56 years and numerous lives old, doing the best work of his career.

Christopher Walken, who has known Rourke since their days at the Actors Studio in the mid-'70s, recently caught up with him in New York.

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: I wanted to ask you about growing up in Miami, because when I was a kid in the '50s my father used to take us there. South Beach was where the inexpensive hotels were. Is that where you were? Collins Avenue near Wolfie's coffee shop and everything?

MICKEY ROURKE: Yeah, yeah. It's funny that you mention that, because when I was a kid and I was doing amateur boxing, Wolfie's was right on the corner. So on nights that I'd be up really late and go to Wolfie's, I'd see all of Angelo Dundee's -fighters-like Muhammad Ali and Jimmy Ellis and Jerry Quarry, and all these guys would be there eating after they ran. They used to run on the golf course down there, and then they'd go to Wolfie's and have eggs and shit.

CW: South Beach was where the cheap hotels were, right?

MR: Yeah, absolutely. They used to call it the Elephant's Graveyard.

CW: In the '50s, you could take your car on a boat and go to Havana . . . Anyhow, I've been reading some stuff about you that I didn't know. I didn't know you were originally from Schenectady.

MR: Upstate New York, yeah.

CW: And then you moved to Florida. And then you had your first career kind of in sports. And then you got into acting. Well, I never knew you were on the stage. What was it, a Jean Genet play?

MR: Yeah, I probably did a dozen plays, like Off-Off-Broadway stuff. And the Genet play was the first one I did. What the fuck was it? [pauses] Deathwatch.

CW: A lady got you into that? A teacher?

MR: You know what it was? It was actually a kid from my football team in high school who was going to the University of Miami. He was directing a play, and he didn't like the leading man-or the leading man quit, or he fired him-and I was sitting on the beach one day, and he said, "Hey, man, I'm doing this play at the university." I said, "Well, I'm not going to the university." He said, "Yeah, but nobody will know it." So he put me in the fucking play. And I liked it. I really liked it a lot. I had gotten injured during the boxing, and I was supposed to take several months off because I'd had a couple of concussions, and so I sort of just left the boxing and got into the acting by accident after I did that play.

CW: How much later was it that I met you at the Actors Studio?

MR: I would say maybe four years later. I think the first year and a half that I was in New York I was having trouble just living somewhere. Back in them days the city was a lot different than it is now.

CW: You know, I have to say that I recently saw The Wrestler, and you are great in it. It's very difficult nowadays to get independent movies done . . . Oh, by the way, how's your dog?

MR: She's barking because I'm not paying no attention to her.

CW: Well, give her a pet or something. I had that on my list of questions. I was going to say, "How's your dog?"

MR: Yeah, Loki's still around. She's 16½. I didn't know you saw The Wrestler.

CW: I did. It is very powerful, and obviously they didn't have a lot of money to spend.

MR: Well, it was really hard, because in the beginning, Darren [Aronofsky, the director] really wanted me to do it. I had done some research on him, and all the information I got I really liked. I asked some people who had worked with him whose opinions I valued, and everybody said, "He's his own man." But the thing with the budget was tough, because it was, like, a $6-million shoot. And then I was actually going to be replaced in the movie before we even started because they wanted a bigger name-Darren didn't know if he could make the movie for so little money. So a couple of weeks later, after I got replaced, I got a phone call going, "You're back in." And after meeting Darren, I wasn't jumping up and down excited, because I knew he'd want me to do, like, six months of weight lifting and put on an extra 34 pounds and then do three and a half months of wrestling training . . . And you know, it was one of them movies where you didn't get paid. So I think my agent was more excited about the piece than I was. [laughs]

CW: Is the character based on somebody?