Still Plenty of Fight in Mickey Rourke

I suggest you do. Rourke is an actor of great focus and intensity, and he often appears to be lit from a fire within That fire has gotten him in trouble with directors, co stars and producers, earning him the reputation of being difficult to work with, but nearly always with breathtaking results. Rourke's childhood was, as he calls it, a nightmare. Before he found his acting teacher, Sandra sik Cat of the Actor's studio, Rourke sought refuge in a

much different place. The boxing ring. I started when I was about eleven years old and had also I had four step brothers that were the toughest fights I ever had. You grew up in Schenectady, I was born up State New York, but I was raised in Miami. My mother married Cox Sucker, a policeman down there, brutal son of a bitch, which was a good outlet for me with

the boxing, you know. And we we grew up in Liberty City, which was the black section of town, and you either were a really fast runner or you had to fight. We actually wed in a neighborhood where you had to ride to school in a pack or else

you'd get your bike taken from you. And I remember days where I was riding my bicycle alone to school and then there's four guys, five guys whatever, you know, waiting for me to cross Seventh Avenue and I would go hide in the gas stations and until they left because I didn't want to get beat up from my bicycle taken from it. Yeah. Absolutely, When he was a kid,

he talked about yeah, you know, yeah, I was. I was a chicken ship all my all my stepbrothers could kick the ship out of me, the ones that were younger, the ones that were older. And you have a full brother and a full sister and my yeah, my full brother passed away about eight years ago. Yeah. Um, he never got into Joey never got never got into the boxing. He uh, he was in the marijuana business. He was very quiet, I think because of what had happened growing up.

He couldn't. I fought and he got he got quiet and couldn't. He didn't trust anybody, and he was very shut down and he could only sort of communicate in the outlaw world part of society. Um. She is, but when my brother died in my arms, I could never speak to her again because I blamed joe being anti social and and uh to be able to function on her because she allowed certain stuff to happen. She just turned her back to you. So boxing is something you

do with a kid. You would have to record you you know you you you want a lot of fights. I'm want a lot of amateur fights. So it was undefeated as an amateur. Uh So when you jump up to New York and to go study with Sandra Sikat correct and you're gonna start doing the acting. That what happened? Why? Um, I had gotten a had gotten a two concussions in a row, and I think I was gonna I don't know. I was about sixteen or seventeen, and um, the doctors told me to take a year off, did not have

any contact. And there was a kid in my class in my school who was going doing acting and you know, and he's asked me to do a play and I had no idea, and so he talked to me into doing this play. And I thought that this is the better than getting up at five in the morning and running the country club where he would get up and runner each day. And uh, you know, back then it was it was a ritual to you know, to do

your road work before the sun came up. And and uh, you know, this acting thing I thought was a lot easier than the grind at the gym. And I was very undisciplined. Uh young man, and uh I had I had trouble just listening to anybody. And um, did you listen to see kat? I listened to her, but I didn't. I wasn't able to listen to my boxing trainers. And why did you listen to her? Why did I listen to sound? Yeah? What was it about that? You know? I said to myself, I'm going to give myself five

years to see if this acting thing is anything. I said the same, we give myself one year. Yeah, So I was living at the time at this welfare hotel down on Eighth Street, and it was there was an old man behind the desk who was a big theater buff, and he would give me books to read. I had no idea who Marlon brand Don't was or Tennessee Williams, Tennessee Williams. You know, I knew who bo Jack was, Sonny listen email Griffith, you know Roberto the Round, James Dean.

I didn't know who he was. So it was like, you weren't you weren't a movie going down, not at all. You weren't a movie watcher. No. And I was working construction at the time. I had I worked on a construction crew on a jackhammer. And I remember after work when I had my jeans on. I think I only had two pairs of jeans with three black T shirts. And I showed up at the hotel and this elderly man, who older man who worked it behind the desk, Carl.

He was all done up, like, you know, really dressed up. And I he says, we're going to the theater and I said, Okay, let's go. He goes, you can't go to the theater like that, you know. I had the dirty jeans that just from my construction job. Some proper clothes. I didn't have any proper clothes. He dressed me. He dressed me up and h He actually died this year

at a hundred. You know, he kept we've kept, we've kept in touch, and he was a hundred years I call Montgomery, So you go to the theater with him. I went to the theater and saw a play with him. It was Ralph Richardson and John gilgu It was okay, and you know it was it didn't rock my boat. It wasn't Muhammad Ali and Sunny listen. You know. It was a whole different world for me. And so I go to the acting classes and I think it was about a year and a half or two years that

I would go. But I wouldn't get up and do anything. I would just sit there and watch other people and actually treat Williams and Christopher Reeves Pressed the Soul were both in the class. And they get up there and they didn't get all the you know, emotional and you know, and do all this stuff. And I thought, I can't because you know, being on the street, you can't. My other job was I was running a massage parlor on Fort Street. I was in charge of the fly boys.

I had these young Puerto Rican kids that would you know, I wanted to make some money. I give them sacks of flyers and they'd hand them out to customers. And my job was when the pimps came over, they would take the flyers from the young Puerto Rican kids and throw the flyers away because they had their girls work on the street. So my job was going over to the pimps and I would say leave my funcket fly boys alone, and if they didn't get it, I'd opened my coat and show them the ship and they got

the message. So well. It was weird because that yeah, right, do a different jackhamps the street life and then acting class clash. So it was so it was because I had to keep you got to keep a certain face on the street and to go into acting class, and that become vulnerable. It was hard for me to uh. But you auditioned for the studio and they let you win very quickly, correct if I read very quickly, and they said your audition was one of the best auditions

they've seen in thirty years. Because Anne said that to me when I finally knew who because that was I finally realized it was an amazing Well, there's a story to that. Um I I said to my acting coach Sandra one days, you know, because I used to see al Pacino at the studio and um and Chris Walkin and Harvey Kite Towel and you know guys that I really admired. And I said to Sandra one day, can I ever be as good as like al Paccino? And she said, you have to work harder than the rest.

And I understood that. But because I related, I could understand that in the relation to boxing, you know, if you you don't win the fight on the night of the fight, you win the fight the ten twelve weeks that you do your worthy, you know. So when you're sitting in the dressing room and they're wrapping your hands in the door opens and you hear the crowd, that's when you know, that's what That's when I would get

right the fear with come in. But if I did my home, my road work, you know, all I'm thinking about is that that prick in the other room, he didn't work as hard as I could. So with the acting I I would literally go there after my jobs late at night she got I got a call to the key to the studio and I would walk in there. What I would do is there was a bum on the street. Uh. I forgot his name, but I would pay him like five dollars to read lines with me.

He could hardly read, but I buy him a big giant bottle of beer and he would as good as he could read. He would read the other lines and I would. When you're in the actor's studio at night, like around one, two in the morning and twelve at night, you know, and you start thinking about you know, who's been there before you, who's walked on that floor before you? You know, it's it's it's a. It's a. It's a. It was a really beautiful feeling. It was mind blowing.

And to be there all at night, and I was there every fucking night, and I would work and I'd work harder, and I would work harder, and then did eventually got up in front of people. Eventually I got up in front of people in the state field. It was okay because Sandra knew my background from fighting, and she also knew that I had I had a tremendous amount of guilt for quitting the boxing walked away. I

felt like a coward that I quit. Yeah, And she had me to you know, it was a Stanislavsky method type of acting, of course, and she had me to a sense memory of me in a place that I loved to be. And what I was doing was lacing up my boxing shoes. And I remember because Ali was at the gym at the same time, and Jimmy Yellis and Jerry Quarry, oscar Bonavet, you know, all the great ones, you know, And I remember I had gotten these white boxing shoes that were the same ones that Ali had.

And so when I did my sense memory and and then I had this monologue that she had me do, and I was lacing up the shoes and just everything kind of just cracked, and it was like and she had me she she want to say the lines, and it was and then I understood what the work is and how to make it personal and how to tap into an emotion and then be able to to use

it and the scene in the work. So here's but what's interesting to me is when you show up in films and you come across as very vulnerable and very tender, you know you're a handsome leading man. The first movie that you star in is what pp ganche Village diner pupla grange village and ensemble the nine and half Weeks. That girl who's in that movie, but what's her navy? Remember her? The Blonde with Georgia um so pupla greendige village.

That is probably your first starring role, correct, not an ensemble. Yeah, and it happens to be my favorite movie that I've ever made. Why how can you say that? I think because Eric Roberts is probably him and him de Niro and Chris Walking the best three actors I've ever worked with. And Eric was on fire at the time. He just come off King of the Gyp season and he was the hottest actor on the planet. And it's to me it's a shame that he doesn't work more now. Um, and he was. I had to be on my toes

with Eric. Eric is a is a great actor. And uh, I'll say that to the day I go to my grave. But when you come onto the set of a film early on, did you rely on directors to help you at all? Today? Um? Well, Levinson was the first time director at the time. You know. Um, he was more of a writer where I was really happy. He was working with Coppola on Rumble Fish and and then I did three movies with Simino, and then of course the movie with Arean Line, and those three were real actor directors.

He was so well prepared. He does an enormous amount of pre production and research himself. And when I did Year the Dragon with Semino, I was playing a cop and uh, he actually made me meet the real Stanley White, and he made me he ordered me too. I had to Back then they didn't have cell phones at peepers, and the real Stanley White was a homicide cop, and so he gave me this peeper and every night that there was a homicide, I had to go. And I went on thirty eight homicides with him, and the first

three or four it was terrifying for me. I mean I just didn't want to see dead body, you know. And then after like the fourth or fifth one, it was nothing. It's interesting. Yeah. Um. The only thing that really stuck with me that was to this day that was terrifying was he made me go to an autopsy. And I've never been to a uh that kind of place before. But you don't forget it once you've gone inside. And he wanted me to really sink into this. This This was one badass cop. And I, you know, Stanley

and I to this day are really close. And uh, he's just this tattooed, muscled, you know cop that did two tours in Vietnam and really intelligent. Um. I went out with him for three months, you know, before we did the movie. So when I walked over to a dead body, I knew. You know, you've you look for the defensive wounds on the hands, You look at it. You can look at the gums and tell how long

the person has been dead. You look at the different colored blood that's on the ground, and if it's a darker red, that means it hit like a liver along or a art So Chimino was. He picked out every thread of clothes I wore, and I usually don't want anybody do that. But did you trust him? Why? You

just liked him? Because I respected him. He just connected what he absolutely same thing with Coppola and with the Adrian line, you know from boxing, and I don't stand up straight, you know, I hunt over and I ure and it's just a habit and Adrian as I'd be

doing the scene. Sometimes I would he Adrian would look at me and he put his shoulders back, you know, and it meant for me to stand up, you know, just but the adjustments that Adrian Line is not known as an actor's director, but he's so intelligent and he's so prepared, and he you know, he doesn't he does a movie like every nine to twelve years. But why doesn't he make films that? Do you keep in touch with him? I do see him, you know, Um, why

isn't he make any films anymore? He's just an eccentric bird, doesn't well, let's put it this way. It's no picnic making a movie, right. Everybody has an right, but everybody he has an idea of oh, you're in the movie business. But we spent eighty percent of the time sitting on our trailer. Wait, you know, and uh, I think, I don't know, he's made nothing in the last two years.

And this is just tragic because he's he's a great filmmaker, and Shamino hasn't made a movie and sixteen years or whatever, and you don't think he doesn't care anymore. I don't know what it is with Michael Um you keep in touch with him, Yes, I do. He does Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. Eastwood says to him, you could direct the film he does his first film. Because he directed a lot of commercials of one of Bridges of Jeffrides best performances. The film makes a lot of money. They say to him,

He's going to do Deer Hunter. He wins the Oscar. It's like this fairytale. Well, look at the acting performances and Deer Hunter, from from de Niro to John Savage to Chris walk into Meryl Streep to everybody was in the fucking movie. Was just everybody was great in that movie. And then and then of course he does Heaven's Gay eight. I was in that too, exactly exactly, and it seems like like all the goodwill is undone by the one film. And then you start to make a couple of films

with him after that. Yes, but after that there was a backlash against him because of what happened with United Artists, the crumbling a United artist with what was he like to work with them? The two films you made after Havings came, Um, I did Desperate Hours, whether with Anthony Tony, which his named Hopkins. Uh. This the industry by the time after Heavens came out, and everybody was against him. So when we did a Year of the Dragon together,

they they they purposely tore him a new asshole. I loved Chimino, and he also taught me a lot of valuable lessons that I've stayed with me. Um. I remember when when The Year the Dragon came out, and Uh, I enjoyed working with somebody that I had so much respect for and that I have so much respect for. And then I was so much wanted to please and I wanted him to two. I wanted to please him so badly. I would do anything too. I would go just through through walls, and I did go through walls

from him. I had a lot of blood on me on that movie. Um. He said to me when the movie came out and it didn't get received well, but it was mainly because of of the industry and the people wanted to break him and they weren't going to give him a fair shape. Right he did so. I remember I was reading reviews one day of all the papers in the United States, and I had a big pile on the left side that were the good reviews. We're not a big pile of medium sides file that.

I had a gianantic pile on the right side. And I read every review from every every city. And there were a lot of bad reviews, and unjustly so. And I remember we were writing as Black Cheep and I I was so upset. I started to cry and Michael pulled the jeep over and he says, what the funk are you upset about? And I'm going Michael's he says, he says, did you read the good reviews? And I said yes, He says, and how did they make you feel? And I said good? You know? He said did you

read the bad reviews? And I said yeah, how do they make you feel? And I said, well, that's what I'm And he says, listen. He said, do you know those people that wrote there was reviews? And I said no, and he says, I don't know them either. He says, what do you care about what someone thinks so writes about you that you don't know, And he says, if you can't handle reading the bad ones, don't read the good ones either. And from that day on, I've never

read a review or a remark in my life. The film I've done, even when people said, no, the kindest thing about you and the rest of it, doesn't it? No, No, you know what happened. We're going to get to that period in a minute. But I want, I want, I want to go back, and I want to say when you did movies back then, and you were starring in films and you were leading man with a lot of films back then, what scripts did you choose and why was that? Was that a yes because it was Chemino?

It was absolutely yes, because it was Michael Chremino. No, you didn't care about the being a remake of the Bogart film? Absolutely not. Did it intimidate you know? I would do anything with Michael. It was all about Michael. It's the same thing with Francis Coppola, where it's the same thing with are you in line? And when when time goes on? Did you feel Maybe you didn't, but I'm wanted did you feel that there was a place that the business wanted you to be in, that they

wanted you to occupy? And he started to get uncomfortable with having to play I got uncomfortable when I realized, well, the two things happened. I tried to. I looked at like al Pacino's career, and I admired in respect the fact that Al never really sold out and he's always stuck to doing the best work and and with with respect and dignity that he could do. And I at the time, I was my agency or whatever it was, wanted me to live in Los Angeles, which I spit on,

not the agency Los Angeles. I just hated there. And um I used to sit for a year two or three and wait for like the right script or right for Tremino, and um, nothing fell on my plate. And because once again I did another movie after all those movies Papa Grandich Village with with Eric and they you

know that guy. There was a change at MGM at the time and a new regime came in, so they didn't really want to promote the film, and um, so it was a little bit of a dry run for me, and there was no work coming in because I was waiting for you know, Jamino or Adrian or Popoland. It didn't happen. So if it did happen, what happened was this piece of ship fell on my plate and they offered me a boatload of money and like a whore.

I took the four million or whatever it was and bought a big fucking Elvis Presley house that I couldn't afford. And uh, I remember doing this film and hating myself every day. I'm talking about hating going to work, and it just I couldn't keep a lid on ship and I acted out. I acted out. Yeah, there was a lot of rage inside of me, and I was mad at myself, and I was in the director couldn't he couldn't direct traffic, you know. And uh, I mean Don Johnson used to tell him where to put the camera

and he put the camera there. I think I'm a Yeah, Harley Davidson in the all problem which blows my mind to this day is I was working on this little documentary thing or whatever with Bob Dylan and Bob just making a Harley David's man it's my favorite movie. And I go, oh, here's the here's the most interesting man I've ever met in my life, and that's his favorite movie. And that blew my mind. Um, But that I ended up losing the house to the bank. But I even I can't even drive by it. Um. I think it

was a four million dollar house. I put two million down cash and then put two millions to renovating it, and then I couldn't even Yeah, I couldn't make the payments. So it all started a crumble by then, and the women became my thing. And you know, I'm just living listen. I mean I tell people all the time, so this is the mistake that I made and said, I got hooked on money. You're Harley David's in The Marble Man. I did about eight of those, right, So for the money.

For the money, that was sort of the end of my love affair with acting was Harley Davidson in the More Romance. Mickey Rourke took a long time off from the business, and when he returned, he played almost exclusively supporting characters until director Darren Aronofsky offered him the starring role in a film about the redemption of an ex

professional wrestler. Rourke wasn't sure about the script, but Aronovski allowed him to rewrite his part More About the Wrestler, for which Rourke received an OSCAR nomination and won the Best Actor Golden Globe and the BAFTA Award. Coming up, listen to our Here's the Thing Archives, where Dustin Hoffman describes what he was doing before he got cast in the Graduate. I had been just starting to get somewhere off Broadway doing you know, my own style of stuff.

Hunchbacked German, gay guy with a limp. Take a listen, and here's the thing. Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. Before the wrestler Mickey Rourke had no prior experience in that sport, but he grew up boxing in Miami, and when he went to l A to act, he continued training. He says he learned the concentration required for acting from his hard work in the gym. There was there was Hoover Street and there was the fourth Street Broadway Gym and Watts.

I used to go there. There was an old trainer named Bill Slayton there, and Michael Doaks was there and he had Kenny Norton before that. It was an all black gym. I used to say, I'm the toughest fucking way game here. I was the only way gner you know, so um but yeah, no me. It was like when the little okay, when the bell sounds, you know, when it goes ding, you gotta go brother, So that's to

help me when the red light goes on the camera. Actually, I knew it gave me a confidence and a technique where I'm usually going to give you the best thing I can give you the first two takes or right on the first take. Who was someone that wrung you out and wanted you to do a lot of takes? If anybody Darren Aronovski, oh yeah, in that movie, Darren Aranowski is probably this. I would say him and Shimino have a lot in common because Darren Darren would say, Okay,

I want you to do this. Okay, I give it to him, and you know, I mean I would bring it and give it to him. And then he goes, I want you to do it again. I said, you didn't get out of that shot. He goes, you can do it better. I said, well, I gave it. I gave you everything I had. He goes, listen to me. I said, well, he goes, you can do it better. Bang, I do it, and I do it better. Okay. Then I think, oh wow, we're done with the scene. And he goes, I need another one. I said, I thought,

I said I did it better. He said, you did, but you showed me. He says, he goes there was something wrong with the camera. You know. He really start you know, and then he says, I want you to do this, and da da da da da, And we're talking about twelve. It's twelve thirty now, Okay. I'm trying to get the help back to Manhattan from Hoboken, you know. And I had a dog at the time named Loki, who I had for god seventeen and a half years. And look, he was having heart trouble and she was

in the hospital that night. And so one of the takes, Darren said to me, I don't want to have to tell you this, but we got a call from a hospital and I said, looky he said yeah, And I said, um, I'm not gonna I don't want to bother you right now. I'll tell you after, but I need you to do another take. You know. He you know, he walked with you, but I let him. I knew what he was doing,

but I let it sink in. And then uh, he would he would talk off camera about my dog to me and say things that got me upset, you know. And if I ever get a chance to work with him, I'm gonna say to him if you loki me, you know. Well that's the other thing too. It's it's very rare that you get have directed that you're going to respect.

But you trusted him. I trusted him because I respected him and I come instantly or he had time when he was pointing his little finger at me and telling me you're gonna you're gonna respect me, and you're not gonna ever say anything to me in front of the crew, you know, the first day that he met me, and I said, okay, uh. And I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, if he's got the balls that we and his finger at me like this, and he must be the ship

and uh. And had you taken on other directors on the set before, I would have broke other directors fingers right off if they would have done pointed their fingers. But the other directors that you really did battle with on the set even not really no, not really no. Um. I've worked with probably more bad directors, and I have good, great directors experience with Alan Parker, he's a really great filmmaker. But what he did was because he had his handsful with de Niro and me, and I was younger, so

he picked on me. Plus he was you know, he wasn't in the greatest shape, so he was pretty nasty to me. Yeah. Um, I didn't do anything wrong, but he needed somebody, you know. I was his whipping boy, I guess, and I came in with At that time, I didn't have the greatest reputation on the planet, so he was like waiting for me to do something. At that point, what do you think that was from when you say you didn't have the greatest ship, Because people talk to each other. Like I did a movie with

a guy. I mean we didn't talk the whole time. I mean, when you're doing a movie with somebody who's directing a movie, it's twelve weeks and you just the minute you see the guy, your hair stands up on your back. It's stressful, man, and you don't want it to be that way. No, but it's usually that way more than it is the other way. After oh God, after I'd been in the business more than a decade, I had to go see a therapist and um, I had some childhood issues I that had affected me. Um impressed.

Now it was anyone with authority who would uh you live up? Yeah, because after what happened to me with one man early in my childhood, even if somebody looks at me sideways, it's it's on. And I don't care if the guy's nine ft tall, it's on, you know.

And it was like if there was one time I was doing a movie with Walter Hill, really nice Johnny Johnny has him, and this this fucking prick comes in the room and he's got his little polo shirt on with the collar up and his ray pants and he's and it's our first day of rehearsing and he's folding his arms and he's standing there like he owns the fucking air. We're all breathing, right. And I said to Walter,

he only said, who's that guy? He goes, that's the producer, and I said, oh, so I walked over to him. I said, hey, man, I said, this is the first day. You know, we're just we're not rehearsing, but we're just reading, like the lines through something. I said, you want to why don't you just, you know, go take a walk

and come back when we're all done. And I can call him a cocksucker because to this day, when my agent tries to send me up on a movie, he's doing you know me, He goes, you know, you still got a heart on for me, So you know what, go funk yourself, motherfucker. You and Donald Trump should get a hotel room. You know. I got too many stories

like that I want to tell. But no. But but Parker, that was not a positive experience because I think it's a pretty good It wasn't really a lot of interesting and and he it was weird because he ended up bad mouthing me. And then I didn't understand why because I gave him everything I had, you know, And Okay, let's put it this way. The easiest way to gain any power in Hollywood, in the movie business is if

you can write. And so lots of times you get writers have become directors, and then because they have been writing in the in the room for the last or twenty years or whatever, they don't know how to interact with an actor or or to bring a performance out

of an actor who can't fucking act at all. And uh, that's where it gets really difficult because you've got a guy in there and they said, oh, his last movie made two million dollars that he wrote, and now he's directing, but he can't direct at all because he doesn't know how to relate to an actor or get a performance out of someone else who can't, who isn't up to the hype. And uh, I went through that recently, and uh, it's no fun when you're on a movie set the

last let's say ten years or more. I mean, I'm older, now years old. I started making movies ninth in the mid eighties, said the TV before that, and I talked about how it's changed, you know, and then when I'm on the side of a film, how is it changed for you. Let's put it this way. If I could get a job walking dogs and get paid the same amount of do making movies, I walk dogs the rest of my life and never make a movie again. I

loved my wife more than anything. My wife and my kids weren't but I said, if I had met these two dogs before I met you, we wouldn't be married. Well, i'd have my two No, I mean, the movie business changed, has changed a lot to the point where it's just you know, Um, I'm not gonna go into any bitching up and growing and growing about things just because I'm not going to do that. But it's just it's not what I it was or what I would hope that

it would be. It's no. I mean doing a lot of action hero movies and really silly comedies and so um. Somebody told me the other day they're doing better ship on TV than they are in the films. Do you have to do a TV show? I don't know, you know, because with me it's I'm very director oriented, and it's like, you know, I want to know who the director is going to be and who he is, and and I don't want to I don't want some tin horn coming on and not knowing how to how to tie his shoes.

If they if I I don't know either one of them. But if I end up respecting them after four days, fine, I don't care who you what your fucking name is. But it depends on the day and how the week goes well. I talked about how difficult it is to make a good movie. Now, I think the scripts out there, there's good scripts out there, there's good actors out there. There just aren't a lot of good directors out there.

I think. But as difficult as it is to make a good film, you come along and you make a very good film with Darren and there's a tremendous, tremendous swell of good feeling for you when you make that movie. You're great in the movie. You're great in the movie. And I'm gonna say that back in ninety three, when I drive across country to move to l A, the oscars come on, and I throw my beer can or my beer bottle at the TV when Ben Kingsley beats

Paul Newman for The Verdict. Not that I didn't think Ben was great, but brand of course, brings the mantle of Gandhi into the into the theater with him. And I thought that The Verdict was Newman's best performance, in its most beautifully crafted performance. And I was really wouting for ball and I love Ben well the incredible, and and and and the Verdict is his greatest performance. And he loses to Ben Kingsley, and I fucking flip that when I watched, and the same thing happened when you

lost to Sean. Nothing against Sean, I mean, I think she's a wonderful actor, but he brings all the sympathy of Harvey Milk into the theater with him. And when you lost, I threw the fucking diet cocaine. But I gotta tell you one thing, Um, I went over in the in the United King to the Bathta. I was happy with that. That that that was a great moment that well, I'll tell you what topped it off was

after winning that. I remember going backstage and I think I had a kind of a funky speech up on their upon the platform, and I remember Mick Jagger Kevin gave me a hug and said, oh, thanks for waking up the dead for me because he was the host. So that was the highlight of my evening meeting. You know, I hadn't seen making like over twenty years, but like I went like, oh, man, you know, because there's not that many guys walking around anymore. You know, you were

great in that movie. Wow, not many movies I can watch again. That's how powerful your performances. Yeah. But the other thing too is Seawan and I knew each other a long time, okay, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for Sean. And if I'm gonna like not get something and they're if they're going to give it to somebody, also let it be Sean Penn because I gotta say this. You know, he's going through some ship, right now. But as an actor, you look, you gotta

look at the big picture. For the last twenty five years, twenty years whatever, there's thousands of young young men, young actors, women, and Sean has set the bar really high, and there's there's there's young there's kids going to acting school. They go, I want to be an actor like Sean Penn. The same thing that when Sean and I were going to school, we went, we want to be an actor like so two other things. Late thirties or thirty three years old.

You you get sick of the films and Harley Davidson, and you go do the get back into the boxing thing your body, your physical muscle frame and eve and you really blow up. You get big, you get you get into what I call of a hypermasculinity phase. The energy you channeled in your work as an acted role just compounding into that. You thought, I'm going to just

make myself big. No, I only got big. I only got big for the wrestler because I had to look like you know, the guys that U big, Vince McMahon, who I think is a great guy, all those wrestling guys, they're all huge, you know. So I had to lift a lot of weights and and and do some other ship and to put on the weight and eat a lot and uh just wash ship and blow up. And so I was up too close to like and no,

it was terrible. I have to now cut weight. Watch I eat because I fight it once seventy five pounds and I walk around at So when I fight it one seventy five, I'd like to come in it one seventy three. Um, so you're fighting again when I'm fighting late April early May in El Paso, Texas. Really why because it's there because you must only God knows, and you're doing some more after that, I'm gonna I want to retire. I have. I'm seven oh and two and now with five knockouts, and I'm going to retire at

ten oh into it seven knockout. How old are you now? Doesn't matter a numbers, just the number and when okay, and when the bell rings. Now I want to throw a right hand. Then I'm gonna show throw a shot to the league. What's your best punch? Well, I've been working on Mickey Ward is a good friend of Michael, and Mickey has that liver shot and fuckingly, you get hitting the liver and any anybody gets hitting the liver

one right, right way. My last thing, and that is, um, this is the question for the man who the host cards are of you all over Paris and you're one of the great romantic leading men. Women just completely falling in love with you. When you had all these girls you were dating, and you had all these supermodels you're dating, and you've had quite a you've had you've lived a good life. You've you've grazed in the meadow, and but no kids, no family. You never would have a family,

No time for that. Um. I came from nightmare upbringing, and I've always promised myself that if I had a child, the one thing I would never do is what happened to me. If I had to live in my childhood over again, I would choose not to be born. So I would never let this cycle continue. And I spent a lot of time in the closet squeezing my eyes and like saying, please please let me disappear. You know

I could well two things to wrap this up. One is that you know in that way that you are this evening, you know, I mean, it's like super tough, the boxing, the the whole. Like I said, hypermasculinity that accomplished, that accompanies that, and you're this very tender person the dogs and there's just so many contradictions to you. But I'm gonna finish with my one of my favorite moments, which is I hosted a screening of The Wrestler at the sho House and the young woman you were dating

at the time was there. You weren't there. And I get up there and I say, uh, one of the main reasons I'm here is because of what a great fan I am. Going back to Pope of Greenwich Village and Angel Hart and nine and a half Weeks, all these movies. Mickey Rourke was one of the only people that drew me to the theater. When Mickey Rourke made a movie, I went and bought a ticket and I

sat in the theater and watched his movies. I said, there are actors who drink and take drugs to build a fire inside them that does not exist, I said. And then there are actors who drink and take drugs to put out a fire that exists in them. I said, And that's the school I think Mickey Rourke is from. And she walked up to me. She goes, she was please tell me again, what does this thing you say about? So she could go back. But the whole, the whole. I'll have a drink. But when I have a drink,

I'll drink all fucking night long. So but that's what I don't want to say. You know, I don't um, not until al Passo is over exactly. But the night after the fight, I'll drink for three days in a row. But then that's it. I'll shut it down. You know what I'm saying? What movie are you doing next? You know, no, I have no idea. I know what movie you're doing next. Yeah, we'll talk when this is over. Okay, thanks for doing

this with me, beautiful. A reporter once asked Mickey Rourke who would play him in the biopic of his life. He said, quote, they'd have to get three people to do it because two of them would die. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.