MICKEY ROURKE

I had some things I had to fix. It took me 14 years to do it. But it was never really fun back in the day to work with directors who were a lot older and were like authoritarian and talking to you like that.

I'm only as rich as my next film.

I didn't have a childhood, really, because I worked my whole life and... other reasons. So when I had some success, I went ballistic. That was my childhood, and the party kept going on.

Years ago I realized that maybe I made mistake, politically, when I turned a lot of that stuff down. I would go off to obscure places and make movies that six people went to see.

In Hollywood, you're always playing roles... It's like going through the motions. But in real life, it's like, you gotta take care of business. It's not just the movies.

I started to shortcircuit because I had high aspirations for the film. I never told anybody that.

I behaved worse than anybody for 15 years, and you have to pay the price for that. I used to blame other people, then therapy made me realise I had to change.

My dogs are more important than my family.

Hollywood's famous for putting you in a box.

It's no fun being a loser. Trust me.

I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three.

As time goes by and you're getting older and stuff like that - getting older sucks. You know, I hear all this crap about, 'Oh, you can age with dignity.' Really?

I trained like an animal, but the thing is focus and concentration. When the bell rings it's like when the little red light goes on over the camera. And I can usually nail my lines on the first or second take because I'm right there.

I loved my mother, but I don't like her.

I was very immature when I was young, and for me there was no balance. Everything was just all or nothing.

Where I come from, being a hard man is being able to take a good beating and then get back up again and carry on fighting.

All I am hoping for is to be able to work - I think my best work is still ahead of me - I think all that I have been through in the last several years have only made me a better, more interesting actor.

I try to find the right director who won't compromise his or anyone else's integrity, and yet be political enough to give the studio what they want, yet put up a fight to maintain that integrity.

I'm the worst surfer in California. My balance is off from boxing.

I'd just as soon do a big-budget movie as an independent one.

Sometimes the independent movies can get a little too arty-farty. You watch the IFC Channel and you want to throw up. You don't always have to take things so serious, you know.

The ladies love me and I love the ladies!

To me, everything's competition.

What I've got to do now is let them judge me for who I am as an actor and not for my notoriety.

I used to love playing football in high school. I played with the same guys for 10 years.