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.

I was very ashamed of seeing a therapist because I thought only crazy people went, and then, after about nine years, I asked him, 'Well, was I really crazy?' And he nodded and said, 'You were but not any more.'

I tried to change my name for the fights, but the only way they could pay me money was if I used my own name. I wanted to change my name to, like, Romeo something-or-other, and they said, "No, we can't do that. We've got to use Mickey Rourke." Because they paid me a lot of money to go over to Europe and Asia to fight.

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.

In boxing, you don't know what's going to happen. In wrestling, it's already prearranged.

A lot of the stuff I am now seeing is edgy, raw kinda material.

I did think for many, many years that because of my ability I could beat the system. And I was wrong.