People ask me about that all the time. They say, "Did you ever think of directing?" And I say, "It's completely out of the question."
I come from a violent background. So I became hard. I realised that I had made myself that way to deal with a feeling of abandonment and shame.
Usually if you read a screenplay, no matter who's writing it, the bad guy is always written as a one-dimensional bad guy.
Wrestlers are all pretty busted-up by the ends of their careers.
The two sports are as different as Ping-Pong and rugby. In boxing, you don’t know what’s going to happen. In wrestling, it’s already prearranged. But the thing I didn’t know about wrestling is that you really get hurt. Because, you know, you’re wrestling in front of a live audience, and you end up doing things like jumps or slams, and 40 percent of the time you don’t land right.
[The tension] between the Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it? It's too easy to blame everything on one guy. These are unpredictable, dangerous times, and I don't think that anyone really knows quite what to do.
When I did Sean Penn’s movie, I think I was living in, like, a $500-a-month room, and someone called me up or bumped into me and asked me if I’d come up to work for a day. That sort of got me going a little bit. But it wasn’t until Sin City [2005] that I kind of got back into the game.
I wanted to change my name to Romeo Florentino. Romeo Florentino - that's a good fighter's name.
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.
Acting was never my first choice as a profession, but I came to terms with it when I decided I better buckle down and be the best I can be at it.
Wrestling and boxing is like Ping-Pong and rugby. There's no connection.
Sometimes, when a man is alone, that's all you got is your dog.
I'm the worst surfer in California. My balance is off from boxing.
I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.
A couple of guys won Academy Awards for the things that I turned down. Today, after coming to terms with everything, after being in therapy for a long time-there are areas where I will compromise.
Hollywood's famous for putting you in a box.
I never knew my father, and I'd hate to repeat that kind of cycle with my own children, because I'd also want to be there for them no matter what.
By the end of the shoot [of Wrestler], my trainer was pushing me up three flights of stairs to my house and holding my arm like I was an old cripple. I had three MRIs in the first two months of working on the film. I felt like it really was over by the time we started shooting the movie.
All that prosthetic makeup drains you. By the time it's lunch, you're done.
Boxers are very isolated - or isolated within their own camps.
I did think for many, many years that because of my ability I could beat the system. And I was wrong.
I started having some memory-loss issues. I took a neurological exam, and they said, "Well, you should stop fighting now." And I kept begging them for one more fight, one more fight, and the doctor said to me, "How much are they going to pay you?" I was supposed to fight three more times, and one would have been for a cruiser belt. So I said, "I just need to fight three more times." He said, "Listen, you can't even get hit in the head one more time, your neuro is so bad."
Since I knew wrestling was all choreographed, I thought, Oh, they don't get hurt at all. But I walked away with a renewed respect for the sport. Because I was very ignorant before - I knew nothing about it.
I never look backwards. I have always been an athlete. I boxed before I acted.
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.
