Mickey Rourke,
Then and Now

	Mickey Rourke, then and now

By Dave Newton

Movies pale, compared to real life. So, Hollywood culture manufactures a real life and makes a movie with the principal. Not a bio-pic. A wink-wink true-to-life story. Crash and comeback. Can't miss. With an "actor" -- or rather an actor-out -- who has lived the authentic experience needed to inform his performance. Bingo. Golden Globe. No Oscar, but a nomination, at least.

This is the American Dream. Love the beautiful star. Envy the beautiful star. Wish the beautiful star would fall on his (or her) butt. Watch as star dives into the toilet. Devour every minute of resulting slow-motion self-destruction real-time made-for-TV-tabloid movie. Lindsey and Brittany do it in months. Mickey Rourke took years. Like the rest of us.

So, for Mickey, the media machine's gotta produce a lot of backstory here. Pain in the ass. This is clearly for your older demos -- 35 to 49. Will Gen Y get it? Not likely. They have no memory of Mickey. But it's too good a story to take a pass on. Think of it as the tabloid fall-rise equivalent of an art-house movie. High-class comeback tale.

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, or, Great Actor Pays Dues, Gets Redemption.

Guy's got a bizarre new face. He looks like, well, Mickey Rourke on steroids. Does anybody remember what Mickey Rourke used to look like? Yeah, kind of like a sociopathic, Irish David Schwimmer.

Actually, "Mickey Rourke" was never the optimum screen name for a handsome leading man. Sounds more like, well, a boxer. Which is what he wanted to be in the first place. In fact, it's how Mickey reinvented himself, as he says in this TV interview, and, unfortunately, got his new face.

Never mind. It worked. Mickey's much better as a beat-up comeback star. He's got the act down cold. He gives great interview. He mumbles, smolders, appears about to clobber Matt Lauer. Talks authentic art-intellectual trash with Charlie Rose right up there with the best of them. He's a dynamite freak-show subject for ET and Inside Edition.

This is great. You get to enjoy a movie, talk about it with your friends, without seeing it. Matter of fact, it's better if you don't see it. You get the whole plot, character, costumes and makeup, without even renting it. By the time the DVD comes out you're beyond caring.

But, it doesn't matter. Mickey's working again.

— Dave Newton is Editor of 3rdActs.com