Francis Ford Coppola on the “odd and interesting” aspects of Mickey Rourke
Hot off the back of one of the hottest directorial streaks in cinema history, Francis Ford Coppola was brought crashing back down to earth when his next feature after embarking on such a legendary winning run left him teetering on the brink of financial ruin.
His legend already secured having helmed The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now within the space of seven years, ambitious musical romance One from the Heart bombed so badly that Coppola was forced to file for bankruptcy after unwisely spending $26million of his own money on a production that couldn’t even crack the million-dollar mark at the box office.
Smartly deciding to downscale the size of his films, Coppola saw a pair of smaller-sized dramas released within seven months of each other in 1983. Underlining his innate eye for spotting talent, the ensemble casts of both The Outsiders and Rumble Fish were packed to the rafters with future superstars.
Ralph Macchio, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, and Patrick Swayze appeared in the former, with the latter boasting Nicolas Cage, Laurence Fishburne, Chris Penn, and Mickey Rourke, while Matt Dillon and Diane Lane were part of both.
Rumble Fish author S.E. Hinton co-wrote the adaptation of her novel alongside Coppola, who opted to broaden his stylistic horizons by incorporating odes to the French New Wave and German Expressionism into the black-and-white drama, which followed Dillon’s Rusty James as he tries to figure out his place in the world.
In his mind, the key to doing so is by being taken under the wing of Rourke’s older brother, Motorcycle Boy, who rides back into town two months after vanishing without a trace. He’s already been singled out as having the potential to become one of his generation’s top talents by that point, but Rourke’s staunch opposition to playing the Hollywood game ultimately saw him torpedo his own shot at long-lasting greatness.
Along the way, he gained the unwanted reputation for being difficult to deal with on occasion, not that Coppola remembered him as such. Retrospectively looking back at Rumble Fish for The Guardian, the director revealed that he prepared Rourke for his role by instructing him to read a book that coincidentally bore an almost identical title to his other Hinton adaptation that hit cinemas in 1983.
“I prepped Mickey by giving him a copy of Albert Camus’s The Outsider,” he said before simultaneously acknowledging and disagreeing with one of the many opinions the industry held on the upstart performer. “He had a reputation for volatility, but he’s actually very sweet, so odd and interesting, ideal as the mysterious Motorcycle Boy.”
Rourke was excellent in Rumble Fish and didn’t cause any issues whatsoever for Coppola, even if the same can’t be said for many of the filmmakers who’d work with him in the years to come.
