Mickey Rourke’s Drastic Transformation Barely Reminds Fans of His Younger Version

Fame and fortune can sometimes destroy someone’s life, especially when it comes to a young and popular Hollywood actor. Just like it happened with Mickey Rourke, whose charming face has gone through a dramatic change during the last few decades. Let’s see how his journey has transformed his outlook from his debut to his most recent appearance.

Great talent with a charming face

During the early ’80s, Rourke was praised as one of the most attractive actors in Hollywood. He was a part of the cast for “Diner” (1982), “Rumble Fish” (1983), and “The Pope of Greenwich Village” (1984), where he magnificently presented his charming smile. With his undeniable magnetism, Mickey stole every woman’s heart. However, his reputation as a heartthrob didn’t live for long.

Throughout the 1980s, Rourke was open about his unease with fame and the Hollywood ecosystem. He would slam his co-stars and directors in the press and dismiss much of the industry as beneath him. “You go through the motions of feeling it but you know the studio owns your ass, the public owns your ass,” Rourke said in 1992. “So over a period of eight years, you slowly lose your spirit in a way.”

He turned to boxing again

In 1991, with the feeling of self-destructing and lacking respect for himself as an actor, he felt compelled to return to boxing, a sport that was one of his first loves earlier in his life. He felt calm, and boxing became a sort of protection for him, an escape from the pressures of the acting world.

But during his boxing years, Rourke suffered numerous injuries: he would break his nose twice, snap his cheekbone, and damage his ribs and toes. He would be told by advisers to quit the sport or sustain potentially permanent brain damage.

The first marks on his face

While trying to maintain his acting career simultaneously, fans couldn’t help but notice the changes he was doing to his body. The injuries and the surgeries were evident to all. In certain scenes of “Wild Orchid,” Rourke’s swollen cheeks were the main reasons that raised suspicions of poorly executed implants. Rourke denied these claims, attributing the swelling to unexpected side effects of tooth surgery, but questions stayed in the air.

In 2009, Rourke revealed that his changing looks resulted from botched facial surgery. He admitted, “Most of it was to correct the damage caused by boxing, but I chose the wrong surgeon to put my face back together.”

Got stuck in his career

During the 1990s, Rourke’s reputation shifted. “I had my career going, about 10 years ago, in the right direction,” he said. “I started not liking the business, and not liking myself. I was slowly self-destructing at a pretty fast rate. I felt like I didn’t belong doing what I was doing, meaning acting. I felt some sort of guilt about being successful at it.”

Successful comeback

But in the 2000s, Rourke started to focus again on acting. He was working with Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Rodriguez and starred in films as Man on Fire and Sin City. In 2008, Rourke played the lead in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, about washed-up professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson. The role earned him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.

After this role, Mickey Rourke experienced a resurgence in mainstream cinema. However, the challenges didn’t stop there. He expressed disappointment with his role in “Iron Man 2,” claiming that much of his performance was left on the cutting room floor and distanced from several projects, mentioning that he took them only for financial reasons.

A life with controversies

Rourke’s unbalanced behaviour and his physical appearance, including his facial surgery and his rugged, muscular physique, made it difficult for him to be cast in specific roles. He still played in a few movies in the last decade, like the Sin City sequel, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, and in the Canadian-American thriller, Girl. He also appeared in TV shows like The Masked Singer, or most recently in Celebrity Big Brother, from which he was removed due to his unacceptable behaviour.

Still, Mickey Rourke, at the age of 72, is in good shape, making appearances and proving that coming back is possible even when everyone has given up on you.

Another famous Hollywood actor with a muscular physique is Danny Trejo. You can read more about him in our Danny Trejo, Hollywood’s Tough Guy That Has a Heart of Gold in Real Life article.