Am I the only one who can’t look at Mickey Rourke? I’m sure he is great in the new movie but I don’t think I’ll be able to watch it. Doesn’t matter if it was bad plastic surgery or the boxing, his face creeps me out. He no longer looks human and I have to turn away.
The movie is great, and his face suits that role. As long as you don’t have some mental image of “this is what Mickey Rourke” looks like (since he absolutely no longer does), it’s not that disturbing.
The thing about The Wrestler, which I’ve seen 3 times now, is that within minutes after the movie starts you forget it’s Mickey Rourke and just see him a Randy “The Ram,” while at the same time who is playing The Ram is an important undercurrent and is part of the reason why this is the role of a lifetime for him. Once you’re engrossed in the movie, and you will almost certainly be engrossed in the movie, you understand why Randy looks the way he looks. Then as you get to know more about him, you understand why his life is such a waste and a tragedy. It parallels Rourke’s life so brilliantly, but in the moment, you’re only thinking of the character.
Rourke’s performance is deep and poignant, totally worthy of the Oscar (though I’m still rooting for Sean Penn).
Honestly, you’ll get past his looks almost immediately, and be involved in the character. The Wrestler really is worth seeing.
That is part of the reason. It looks like someone abducted the real Mickey Rourke and replaced him with a badly made replica. It probably does fit the role and I’ll try to watch it at sometime. The combination of his plastic face and his freakin weirdness makes me itchy when I see him.
Ummm, so what exactly happened to Mickey? Bad plastic surgery or something? I don’t follow “celebrity” news gossip.
Mr Rourke decided to become a professional boxer at a somewhat senior age and suffered much pounding of the facial region. When he finally listened to his doctors about the damage he was suffering, he required some plastic surgery to repair the pugilistic damage wrought to his visage.
Link : http://www.boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Human:29155
And you have to admit he has the best bizarro before and after photos of all time:
Pre-boxing young Mickey : http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b303/brissaalina/MickeyRourke2.jpg
Modern Mickey:
That’s understandable. Me too. But see, it actually points out what a great actor he is. He no longer can rely on his looks or attitude. He had to actually get into and become the character. And though Rourke’s story and boxing experience helps him give the character an extra added depth, he’s not “playing himself” as I’ve heard said. Who knew he had this kind of performance in him? He probably didn’t. Aronofsky sure did. It’s quite remarkable.
The movie itself isn’t perfect. They shouldn’t have let Evan Rachel Wood (an actress I normally like) anywhere near the production. She drags it down. But otherwise, it’s very good, and Rourke’s performance is worth seeing just to marvel. And I say that as someone who loathes wrestling! It’s amazing to me how so many great movies can be made about the most stupid and useless sports.
Or it could be that the guy is 56 years old now. Christ.
Pre-boxing Mickey gives me ants in the pants. Seriously. And then he went and got beat up. Like, 1000 times.
But I find his look (specifically in his Time article “10 questions” or something similar) very attractive too.
Guess it just goes to show - let a man use a whip on Kim Basinger and you’re pretty much going to have to cut it off to make it less desirable to me…
Mickey Rourke’s plastic surgery required taking some cartilage from behind his ear to rebuild his nose in five or six surgeries, and also had his cheekbone compressed in a fight. In boxing parlance, he’s a little marked up.
Wow, they don’t cut you much slack in Miami, do they? From the link : Rourke was arrested for a third time in South Florida on Thursday, November 8, 2007 and charged with drinking under the influence.
Another thing to consider is his Irish heritage.
Purely anecdotal, I know, but I have a few male friends that I grew up with who both have strong Irish backgrounds. When they were in their teens and twenties, they were the hottest guys around. Sort of Brad Pitt crossed with James Franco.
Now that they’re approaching 50, they’ve both morphed into something else. They just don’t look like they are the same persons as their old selves.
They’ve put on bulk (not really fat) and their faces puffed - their eyes became slits, the skin got ruddier, the nose bulbed up. Now it’s more Charles Durning. I don’t know if it’s drinking or just the way they age and put on weight. But it is remarkable seeing it in two people in such a similar way and that they’re both distinctly Irish.
I know people age, but some age - and transform.
You might be seeing the effects of rosacea which is supposed to be common among people of Irish descent.
The old Mickey was way hot. The new Mickey is unfortunately not, but I got used to the new face during the movie.
I feel really sorry for him. He’s not happy with his face, and the world never misses a chance to tell him that it’s not happy, either.
That sure could be part of it with these guys.
Dude was HOT in 9 1/2 Weeks. So hot, in fact, that I might just have to watch that again real soon so I can attempt to erase his current face from my mind. It’s worth a shot. And after I watch it, I’ll be in my bunk.
But it also seems like maybe his personality isn’t the greatest, which makes him even uglier, to me. He kind of acted like a douchebag at the Golden Globes, and then today he went out looking like this. Ew. ::shudder::
Oh, Jeez…yet another case of Hollywood Stars Without Mirrors…
Thanks for explaining what happened to him. I saw him in “Once Upon A Time In Mexico” and wondering what had happened.
He was a great actor during the otherwise god awful eighties, he really stood out as something different. But he seemed to be the Marlon Brando type of actor (and to a lesser extend, Sean Penn) — a great character who couldn’t see acting as “real” enough for their temperament, and went for something “real” - boxing, in the extreme case of Rourke. And as Brando, he was astonishingly handsome, yet came through as a really tough guy, who couldn’t care less about his own appearance. He could easily have been (at least one of) the greatest actor of his generation.
One can’t blame a man for following his “inner monkey”, to speak with Norman Mailer (who spoke about Hemingway), but of course it was a pity for us admirers he flushed his career down the toilet, and his good looks with it.
But now, when the monkey has had his, he yet again appears as an great actor (which Brando never did). I personally find it difficult to cope with people only talking about how he looks. He is super talented and there’s a great personality behind this not so good looking appearance, a face with lots of stories. You don’t see that in the face of Brad Pitt et al.
Now, to honor this great American actor, I will get myself a beer, dammit.