10 Things You Didn't Know About The Wrestler
9. Rewrites And Ad-Libs
Despite being the greatest on-screen performance of his career, Mickey Rourke apparently wasn't enamoured with the original script to begin with. He felt it was flawed in parts, mainly due to the way Robinson was presented and that his interactions with the people around him weren't deemed realistic for the character.
As a means of rectifying the situation, the film's director, Darren Aronofsky, allowed the actor to rewrite all of his own dialogue in the movie. Once Aronofsky had approved the changes, Rourke was in and the movie was on.
What's even more fascinating is that some of the best scenes in the movie were done with little prep work or pre-planning. According to Rourke, not only did he write the heartfelt speech given by The Ram at the end of the movie, but he did so the very night before they shot it.
In fact, the scene where Randy is serving customers at the deli counter was apparently totally unscripted altogether and just Rourke improvising. Aronofsky simply told Rourke to take orders from the customers and the cameras shot the results; the improvised lines worked so well that he decided to keep them in the final cut.