Meeting up with Mickey Rourke is more a really strange experience than an interview. Poised for a whole mess of awards for his stint as Randy “The Ram” Robinson in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, Rourke acted like he couldn’t care less. Dapper and mod in a flashy suit, and characteristically offbeat and reeking of tobacco, Rourke—an ex-boxer himself—was also eager to try out a secret wrestling move on yours truly, and it was not exactly a delicate fist bump. He also described pulling off this amazing movie with a little help from Bruce Springsteen, Axl Rose, and the Israeli army…

Q: You’re in amazing shape for a 50-sh guy. What was your regimen for The Wrestler?
Mickey Rouke: We had six months of weight lifting. I walk around at about 192, and I had to get up to 234 or 235. So I kept floating between 234 and 236. And I never had to gain weight before; I always had to lose weight, for different sports. And I thought, wow, I get to gain weight. But we had to put muscle on, not fat, and after putting like 20 pounds on, it got really hard. But I hired this Israeli cage fighter from Israel, who’s from the army. And he was real strict with me.

Q: Was your age a problem?
MR: Yeah, you can’t do now what you can do in your 20s or 30s. But you can still look the part and bring it. And I remember, because of my extra bulk, that I had a football knee from high school that acted up again. Two hundred years later! And my woman had to get behind me and push me up the stairs—I lived in a three-flight walkup in Tribeca—and I was pathetic looking. So my knees wouldn’t hold up, because of all the extra weight and the exercise, and all the injuries you get from being thrown down, you know?

Q: What’s that wrestling culture like anyway?
MR: These guys all have a camaraderie with each other. They all pretty much get along, and like each other. And they buddy up. And the ones who aren’t, like, headliners anymore, they’re in their cars driving from city to city, to small venues. So they really know each other, inside and out. You know, they go to the same bars, they’re all talking the same steroids, they’re all drinking and banging the same chicks. And there are little signals that they do. Like if you grab somebody’s arms, and you wanna reverse it, they’ll do something like this [Rourke twists my hand] which is called an “inky.” That means to reverse it. So there are certain little signs in this world that only they know about, that I found pretty fascinating.

Q: What was the hardest part of becoming Randy The Ram?
MR: It was the physical thing, and the emotional thing too. You know, the speeches, that kind of crap I could relate to. And being kind of ashamed to run away. Nobody likes to admit that they screwed up so badly with their life, and then you’re left alone, and you’re like yesterday’s news. And if you’ve been there—I’ve been there—it’s no picnic. Randy wants one more chance, and he ain’t gonna get it, you know? I’ve been lucky, I got another chance.

Q: How did Bruce Springsteen get involved?
MR: We were filming in Jersey, and I wrote to Springsteen, like, “We got no song” [for the movie]. I wrote him a really long letter. We’ve known each other a long time. But during my lost years, I even lost touch with him too. So he got back to me after he read my letter, and he wrote a beautiful song for us that we couldn’t have afforded. Then I called up Axl [Rose], and he gave us “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” we couldn’t afford that either. So those guys kinda stepped up to the plate, you know? I think I got that song from Springsteen because I said to Bruce in that letter, “I’m real lucky that I got advice from the people I did. This character didn’t have that. That’s the only difference between us, really, because he’s in a real spot, this guy, you know what I mean? The best thing that could happen to him is that he goes out like a light bulb for the last time, when he lands on that mat. Instead of living in that f**king trailer, and living in shame.”

Q: You go through an amazing physical transformation in The Wrestler. But what about a personal transformation? People are calling this a comeback role for you.
MR: Well, “come” and “back” are really just two words. If you look them up in the dictionary, well you could be coming back from lunch, coming back from losing both legs in Iraq. Coming back from, you know, a great piece of ass. But the comeback thing has been a process for me over the last 13 years.

Q:How so?
MR: Having to realize that I had to change. And change for me…I wasn’t ready, I didn’t wanna change. But I had to. It was that, or I don’t know what. And I thought the change could take place over a few years. But it took a decade.

Q: And what did you want to change?
MR: Everything. You know, I didn’t understand what it was to be a professional, to be accountable. And to realize that there would be circumstances and repercussions for my actions if, you know, my fuse was lit. I didn’t care back then. Like, it was just respect and principle. And honor. Respect and principle can turn out to be, as I’ve learned, a weak thing instead of a strong thing. But where I came from, that’s the way the men are, and that’s the way I always wanted to be. And there’s always going to be that in me.