Mickey Rourke names the best actor he ever worked with
Before he grew so disillusioned with acting that he was left with no other choice but to get punched in the face for a living instead, Mickey Rourke was well on his way towards the top of the industry.
Breaking out as the smouldering, charismatic method man, a series of eye-catching performances early in his career saw many invoke comparisons to Marlon Brando, which was just as much of a blessing as it was a curse. He could have been a movie star if he wanted, but in what proved to be a major obstacle, Rourke absolutely hated the political machinations of Hollywood.
He turned his back on the business to follow a boxing career instead, and apart from a fruitful mini-comeback in the aftermath of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler and a resurgent Academy Award-nominated turn in the leading role, he’s fallen right back into the straight-to-video doldrums.
In a way, it’s fitting that the actor Rourke named as the best he’s ever worked with would occupy similar territory, albeit to an even more prolific degree. He’s shared a cast with Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges, Johnny Depp, Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson, Denzel Washington, and many more, but it wasn’t any of them.
Reflecting on the films he holds dearest with Total Film, Rourke revealed that he has a soft spot for the 1984 black comedy The Pope of Greenwich Village, which he called not only “a lot of fun” but also the feature that gave him the opportunity to work with “probably the best actor I ever worked with.” Of all the names he’s shared the screen with, he doesn’t think he’s stood opposite anyone better than Eric Roberts.
That’s entirely his opinion, of course, but it does beg the question of which other co-stars would consider Roberts as the cream of the crop. After all, it’s not as if there aren’t plenty to choose from when he’s notched over 700 credits and seems to pop up in a new movie every ten minutes or so, but common sense would surely place Rourke in the minority.
Roberts has evidently been placing quantity over quality for a long time now, but at least he’s never out of work for too long. As mentioned, Rourke has worked with many all-time greats and A-list superstars, but for his money, nobody has ever come close to the guy who helped make The Pope of Greenwich Village one of the most unforgettable experiences of what’s been a rollercoaster career.
They’ve reunited several times over the years in titles including Spun, The Expendables, and Skin Traffic as they both circled the drain of genre shlock, but needless to say, nothing has ever replicated the magic of their first-time pairing.
