"Bad Ass Mofo": Mickey Rourke

“I was bouncing at a transvestite nightclub and back then all the transvestites were on this shit called Angel Dust, so you'd hit them over the head with a baseball bat but they'd keep on coming.” Mickey Rourke

Boxer, bouncer, actor, dog lover, poet, sociopath. These aren’t a list of roles that the Bad Ass Mofo of the week Mickey Rourke has played. This is his real life, son! Rourke has been around for decades as an actor. He was a damned heartthrob back in the day. My first time seeing him really was in his later films and during a time when I wanted to see why certain actors were big in the first place I decided to rent some of his old films. I watched Diner, Barfly, Rumble Fish, and Pope Of Greenwich Village and had my damned mind blown. I wondered why he wasn’t an even bigger actor. He looked good and could act circles around anyone on screen. If you look at his older stuff even his voice was different. He spoke in almost a mumbling whisper compared to now where he sounds like he ate a plate of glass with a side of hot acid. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing since it works for him. I seriously cant think of any other actor that could get away from naturally progressing from one type to another the way he did. So what happened?

He quit and started boxing. This changed his face so much. I’m sued to actors looking different because of age, drugs, or an accident. Well, he had a couple of those. He went from being one of the best looking actors in Hollywood and banging anything with a vagina to looking pretty damn close to a monster. Look at that picture. Look at it! That is real. This is what he looked like. Its not like he’s a fat beast or anything now but he used to look like a damned model and started doing the one thing in life that is guaranteed to fuck your face up. He wasn’t even bad at it either having an impressive record before retiring. But the amount of damage that he did to his face and body was done and he dealt with it the way many of us would. By getting loaded. He was at a very low point in his life but then looked life in the face and said "Fuck your plans!" and kept on ticking. But not before burning a shit ton of bridges in the process. He pissed off every director, actor, and agent that heard a word he said.

For some reason this actually helped his career. Years later he pops up playing some pretty amazing roles where the way he looks now is actually a benefit to him. From Sin City, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Iron Man 2, and The Wrestler. He looks the same in all these pictures. He didn’t even need makeup to play Marv! I think they just gave him a haircut and put bandages all over his face. He didn’t even read the script. They just handed him some clothes and said “Uh…just be.” And be he did. He be crazy. Mickey Rourke will be starring in like seven new films in the next year. He went from bottom to top to bottom and back to the top. If any of you want to see some amazing stuff just watch him. You believe he’s the character no matter what role he plays. He is a Bas Ass Mofo and he will eat your children.