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Venice welcomes Rourke’s wrestling film
05/09/2008 - 19:49:16
 Mickey Rourke’s new film role as a lonely has-been wrestler took the Venice Film Festival by storm today.
Those behind 'The Wrestler' received a standing ovation from some reporters during the US film’s press conference, as parallels were drawn with Rourke’s own troubled past.
Much mention has been made of a lack of a Hollywood presence at this year’s festival.
However, as the event draws to a close, excitement mounted as Rourke was tipped to scoop “best actor” awards.
Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, who has a blossoming romance with an ageing stripper, played by Marisa Tomei.
In the 1980s, Randy was a headlining professional wrestler, but 20 years later he ekes out a living performing in gyms and community centres around New Jersey.
The film, darkly comical in parts, shows Randy strive to keep up his image, getting his hair roots bleached and topping up his tan, as well as the violently imaginative props used among the wrestlers, including barbed wire and even a staple gun.
Estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), a heart attack forces him into retirement.
However, the lure of wrestling threatens to draw him back in as he struggles to come to terms with everyday life, working on a delicatessen counter, his blond tresses beneath a hair net.
Describing his character, Rourke said he was a man who was “past his prime that is living in a trailer, whose wife has left him.
“He is a dreamer who is living like s*** and living in a state of shame”.
Speaking about his own life, Rourke said: “I threw my career away 15 years ago”.
Of his character, he later continued: “There is no worse feeling to be feeling shameful all the time... and usually you’re to blame for it.
“You have nobody to blame but yourself. The Ram is a mess.”
He joked he did not have a problem with the deep loneliness in his character.
Asked about what he thought of people already talking about “best actor” awards and his comeback, Rourke said: “A lot of people use the word comeback... Defining it is real hard.
“Where I came back from, only my little dogs would know.”
Director Darren Aronofsky, praising Rourke’s abilities, said: “The thing that’s amazing is it’s always been there and it’s never gone anywhere.”
He said he had been asked “How are you going to make Mickey Rourke sympathetic?”
He said: “I was like: ’You’ve never met Mickey Rourke’. He is the most empathetic person I have ever met.”
Aronofsky said he had been “curious” about a lack of serious films about wrestling.
He said: “The more you look into it, the more you realise there is a sport involved.”
Rourke, a boxer, said that he initially had little respect for wrestling, until Aronofsky sent him to wrestling school and “broke my ass”.
Rourke said research was done on wrestlers from the 1960s to the present day.
He said: “You reach an age where you can no longer perform up to the standard that you used to.
“When you tie your whole life to do a sport, there comes a point where somebody, not usually yourself, says: ’It’s time to go’ – and there’s nowhere to go.”
Rourke, who said he was not going to be “the kind of guy that’s going to sit in a … rocking chair”, highlighted that even though wrestling was entertainment people really got hurt.
He said the film had been made in a documentary-style, adding: “This is not a Rocky movie.”
Paying tribute to Wood, Rourke said: “I thought wow, this bitch can really act.”
Wood said the film would always mean a great deal to her.
She said she had been separated from her own father but the two now had a “great relationship”.
She also joked that her mother had grounded her for watching a previous Aronofsky film, 'Requiem For A Dream'.
A Bruce Springsteen song was penned for the film, which Aronofsky said came about through “Bruce’s love for Mickey”.
He said: “He wrote the song before we finished cutting the film.
“Me and Mickey completely teared up when we heard it, because it really captured the spirit of it.”
Rourke said Springsteen had done “something generous and very special”.
Rourke was also asked about his 'Nine And-A-Half Weeks' co-star Kim Basinger, who has also made a return in a movie in competition, 'The Burning Plain'.
He said: “I haven’t seen her in 20 years but I wish her all the best.
“She still looks... never mind!”
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