The Massie Twins recently had a chance to sit down with acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) to discuss his latest film "The Wrestler."
Massie Twins: The Fountain and now The Wrestler. Other than the succinct titles, any similarities?
Darren Aronofsky: It’s ultimately very similar. You have a limited amount of time and a limited amount of money. It doesn’t matter the scale of the film, you end up doing very similar stuff. It is amazing how quick it goes when you don’t have to do special effects. We finished shooting in March so it’s been only about six months from the time we finished shooting to the Venice Film Festival. I kind of admire Woody Allen for being able to work with that clock and get one out a year.
MT: How do you go about choosing your
next project?
DA: Well, I was just looking for an actors’ piece
and I looked at everything we had in development and this seemed like
one of the strongest contenders. You never really know. Until I have
a script that I’m confident enough in to jump in. I was kind of
nervous about the wrestling elements because they were action and would
take time, but it seemed like the best one ahead of me. Everyone else
thought I was out of my mind, literally. What are you doing? A wrestling
picture with Mickey Rourke? Are you out of your mind?
Mike Massie, Darren Aronofsky and Joel Massie (just before
we could all get our smiles ready)
MT: When you first came on board was
Mickey Rourke already attached to it?
DA: I brought Mickey Rourke into it. When I graduated
from film school in ‘94 or ‘95 I sat down and made a list
of possible ideas for films. And The Wrestler was on that list. I can’t
remember the exact thought process but I think it came out of the idea
that no one had done that world in a serious way. But then in about
’02 when The Fountain fell apart the first time before I put it
back together, I got together with producer Scott Franklin who had been
a producer on my first two films, and together we started to work out
story ideas and do some research. I chose him to produce it because
he was a wrestling fan more than me.
MT: How about Marisa and the rest of
the cast?
DA: Mickey was the first step. I didn’t want
to cast the daughter until I knew it was Mickey for sure, so once we
figured out how to make the film with Mickey, Evan Rachel Wood seemed
like a really good option. It was a very hard role to cast the stripper
because every actress out there knows that within a few months of the
release of the film those images are going to be on the internet forever,
and that’s part of the deal. But I was just very clear that we
were doing a very realistic film so the nudity had to be real. I get
peeved when I see a couple waking up after having sex in a movie and
they’re trying to hold onto the sheets so as not to show anything,
and it’s so unreal that it pulls you out. With this film it’s
just so important that they’re artists with their bodies –
they have to show their bodies because it’s all about that. Marisa
was a very early choice because she’s sympathetic and her complexity
is rarely tapped and I could tell that she really had a lot of depth
there, and she brought a lot of life to a role that could have been
a very easy cliché.
MT: So were you a fan of the whole independent
wrestling circuit before making this film?
DA: No. (laughs) And I’m not a fan now –
I wouldn’t go back to a match ever. But for this we went to a
lot and we did a ton of research, taking long drives to go to places
where sometimes there’d be more wrestlers than fans. We went to
one autograph signing that totally inspired the autograph signing scene
in our film where there were all these wrestling legends.
MT: Where did the staple gun idea come
from? Did you see something like that in a match?
DA: Oh yes, much worse than that. Necro Butcher is
this kind of underground cult American hero. He is the top billing draw
to these independent circuits – when he comes out the crowd goes
crazy because they know they’re going to get their blood. It’s
a funny story actually. We were casting all day in my office and my
office ended up smelling like Bengay for weeks afterwards because these
guys would come in and I wanted to see them in their gimmicks, which
is what they called their costumes, and they would slather themselves
with Bengay. Anyway, the Necro Butcher lives out in Pittsburgh and doesn’t
have a cell phone and just drives everywhere. No one had heard from
him and I had left already and then my phone rings and they tell me
that Necro Butcher just showed up. And he’s probably the only
guy on the planet, except for maybe George Clooney, who could have showed
up in my office that I would have gone back for. So I went back and
he was the sweetest guy in the world. He was military so everything
was “yes sir,” no sir,” “thank you sir,”
and when he read the script he said thank you for making a movie about
my life and it means so much to me. And then he’s this sick motherf*cker
with a staple gun. (laughs)
MT: How did The Ram’s speech at
the end of the film come about?
DA: Mickey ended up rewriting that to make it more
personal. What happened is that me and Rob, the writer, went to this
match out in Long Island and this young wrestler got up there and made
this speech that was personal – a little too personal –
and I looked at Rob and we knew that The Ram had to make a speech at
the end. So Rob wrote a speech that was great, but about two days before,
Mickey said “I’ve got a few ideas, do you mind if I work
on it?” I said go ahead and he came in the day of and he showed
it to me and I was like you really want to say this? Because I knew
what he was doing but we never talked about the connections between
the character and Mickey. I didn’t think it was really any of
my business – now that we’re really good friends I talk
to him about everything though. Basically we had two takes because the
first take the crowd was too loud, so I talked to the crowd and told
them what the moment meant, and they were great. And the second take
is what we used. That take is all the way from him walking out from
behind the curtain, going around the ring and then he enters the ring
– there’s a second camera in the ring – and the first
camera ran around and up a ladder to shoot Marisa for the close-up,
while the second camera picked him up and continued as he went and did
the whole speech.
MT: What was it like at Venice and winning
the Golden Lion?
DA: To be honest, we finished the film about two days
before and about two weeks before we thought about pulling out, not
because we weren’t going to finish, but because I wasn’t
sure that the Venice crowd would go for it because it’s such a
small film and they like literary efforts it seems like. Everyone dreams
about winning a gold medal but I never ever dreamt that the Golden Lion
was possible – I didn’t even fantasize about it because
I just thought we’ll go and hopefully we’ll survive and
we’ll get some good notices internationally and maybe Mickey might
get recognized because I knew Mickey was doing some good work, but it
was a complete surprise. I remember the first thing that happened is
we went out to lunch after the judges had seen the film, and we were
at lunch with one of our distributors and she got a phone call and she
said the judges really liked it. And I thought oh, that’s cool.
And then we had a press conference and they gave us a standing ovation,
which was unheard of, as the press is usually jaded (laughs) and especially
at a film festival. We were the last movie and usually the last movie
of the festival is the crappiest because it’s the worst slot and
everyone’s left at that point. And after the public screening
which was really great, the head of the jury pulled us into his office
and popped some champagne and said “you guys are going to have
to stay.” So that was really wild and way beyond our expectations.
Wednesday we finished the film, Thursday we got to Venice, Friday we
screened, Saturday we won the Golden Lion, and Sunday we woke up at
5 am, flew to Toronto and screened it at 6 pm, and then sold it the
next morning to Fox Searchlight. It all seemed surreal but it was a
good time.
MT: Is it true you’re attached
to the Robocop remake?
DA: Well we’re working on the script, but we’ve
got a long way to go.
- The Massie Twins
Read the Interview with "The Wrestler" star Marisa Tomei HERE!
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I seen The Wrestler on New Year's Eve and Im glad that I started the movie going year with this gem of a movie. All of Aronofsky's movies are wonderful. The Fountain to me is a memorial disguished as a love card reluctantly written by your lover in hopes of coming to terms with what is going to happen. Keep up the great work Mr. Aronofsky. We do appreciate it.