THE METHOD IN THE MADNESS: MICKEY ROURKE

[AN EXTRACT FROM A 22 PAGE FEATURE IN HAYEMAKER BOOKAZINE VOLUME THREE.]

When he isn’t fighting, he’s acting, and when he isn’t acting, he’s fighting.

Sometimes he gets the two mixed up and acts when he should be fighting and fights when he should be acting. Confused? That’s nothing compared to how Mickey Rourke has felt for the best part of three decades. From squabbling with Hollywood glitterati and turning down life-changing roles to shipping hard right hands from Thomas ‘Hitman’ Hearns and James ‘Light’s Out’ Toney, Rourke, once known as ‘El Marielito’, is still to this day groggy and reeling from both the punches and decisions.

If you’re in need of a quick line to summarise Rourke’s impossibly complex career, drop in at your nearest HMV and score Rourke’s passion project The Wrestler or, better still, consider the following anecdote from one of Hollywood’s most controversial, gifted, misunderstood and enigmatic stars.

“I walked by a store one day and spotted a Mercedes stretched limo for a lot of money out front,” began Rourke. “I looked at it and thought it was cool, because it was a stretched limo, not just your ordinary limousine. So I rang up my guy and said, ‘Look, I need 150-something thousand dollars for this car - can we do this? It’s my money, now give me the fucking car’.”

words: ELLIOT WORSELL
photography: SCOTT FENN