Nominee Spotlight: Mickey Rourke
While boxing, Rourke used to enter the ring with Guns'n'Roses' Sweet child o' mine playing in the background, and good buddy Axl Rose let him use the track for free as his entrance theme in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler.
A lot of good buddies moved aside for Mickey to do this role, actually. Nicolas Cage was set to do the film but -- in a rare show of Hollywood class -- realised that Aronofsky wanted Rourke, and backed away to let his old buddy do the part. Another of Rourke's old friends wrote and performed the film's Golden Globe winning theme song after Mickey sent him a copy of the script, and Bruce Springsteen doesn't do that for just anybody.
The film is the underdog story of the year, a drama about a professional wrestler 20 years past his sellby-date. It is a mammoth performance that is being celebrated and championed by critics worldwide, but it is also a role impossible to separate from Rourke's own impossible biography.
And nothing sums it better than the fact that he'll be wrestling Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania XXV
, and I can't think of too many potential Oscar-winners doing that.
Go get 'em, Mick.
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