Los Angeles Confidential Magazine Cover Star Mickey Rourke Tells The Mag: "I'm Just Grateful For A Second Chance"

Los Angeles, CA — January 11, 2009 — Golden Globe award winner for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama, Mickey Rourke, will celebrate his win with longtime friend, Niche Media's Jason Binn at a Los Angeles Confidential Magazine celebration, Monday, January 12, 2009.

Rourke, who graces the cover of Los Angeles Confidential Magazine's "Awards Issue," on stands now, opens up about his Hollywood comeback and the role that got him there in The Wrestler: "After being out of work 13, 14 years I'm just grateful to have a second chance."

Rourke who clinched the Best Actor award for playing the past-his-prime pro wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson in Darren Aronofsky's drama, admits in the magazine that the role wasn't easily handed to him. He reveals, "[Darren] had been working on this project for, like, a decade. He told me it was going to be a struggle to make it with me, raising the finances on my name, because I hadn't been in circulation for awhile, and he really went to bat for me."

On tackling the emotional side of his character Rourke reveals, "I think my whole fear was putting myself back in that headspace emotionally, to revisit some very dark, painful moments, places and people. That was as hard as the physical stuff."

Rourke also offers advice to the new generation of Hollywood actors —"I would say — being out of work 13, 14 years like I did — not to walk that road. I put four or five years into studying like a monk and being the best actor I could, then I self destructed. It took me 10 years in therapy to change my ways," he admits. "They're going to find out the hard way that maybe you can get away with that s—t when you're in your twenties, but when Hollywood closes the door on [them], there's not many guys who can be out of work 13 or 14 years that they're going to give a second chance to."