I started out fighting before I was acting, actually, then got hurt and got into the acting. – Mickey Rourke
It was the most fun I’ve ever had on a movie. It was one of the happiest times in my life. I was living in New York, and I really enjoyed acting at the time. Also, it’s funny because that was also the time when I went downhill. – Mickey Rourke
I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three. – Mickey Rourke
As time goes by and you’re getting older and stuff like that – getting older sucks. You know, I hear all this crap about, ‘Oh, you can age with dignity.’ Really? – Mickey Rourke
I come from a violent background. So I became hard. I realised that I had made myself that way to deal with a feeling of abandonment and shame. – Mickey Rourke
I don’t mind getting punched in the nose by a guy standing in front of me. It’s getting stabbed in the back that I can’t handle. – Mickey Rourke
Bounty hunters these days – because everything is so sophisticated with computers and surveillance, it doesn’t have to be a one-man-army-type guy who goes in and kicks a door down. – Mickey Rourke
You want to earn respect in your old age. You want to walk into a restaurant and have people say: ‘There’s Mickey Rourke. He was great in ‘The Wrestler.’ You don’t want them jumping out of windows. – Mickey Rourke
When you’re young, working in a warehouse or selling hot dogs, you look at work – at acting – as something precious. It gets you out of the stink. – Mickey Rourke
You know, back in acting school they always teach you, ‘Make bold choices and look for activities that are interesting.’ – Mickey Rourke
You can be mediocre, the way most actors are, and you can still be a top movie star, even if your movies are boring and predictable. All you have to do is know how to sell yourself, let yourself be manufactured. – Mickey Rourke
I didn’t have a childhood, really, because I worked my whole life and… other reasons. So when I had some success, I went ballistic. That was my childhood, and the party kept going on. – Mickey Rourke
All I am hoping for is to be able to work – I think my best work is still ahead of me – I think all that I have been through in the last several years have only made me a better, more interesting actor. – Mickey Rourke
I had a lot of anger inside me and that came out at times that were not particularly advantageous to me career-wise. – Mickey Rourke
I trained like an animal, but the thing is focus and concentration. When the bell rings it’s like when the little red light goes on over the camera. And I can usually nail my lines on the first or second take because I’m right there. – Mickey Rourke
I still work out most days. When I do it, I go full blast five or six days a week, two to three hours a day. I enjoy it. It’s therapeutic for me. – Mickey Rourke
I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn’t get a job. – Mickey Rourke
I was very immature when I was young, and for me there was no balance. Everything was just all or nothing. – Mickey Rourke