A director falls in love with acting

Having first come to the attention of audiences with his visually audacious films -- 1998's "Pi" and 2000's "Requiem for a Dream" -- Aronofsky seemed poised for a broader crossover with 2006's "The Fountain," an ambitious time-travel story about love and loss.

"The Fountain" had an infamously long and tortured production history -- including an abrupt shutdown, a change in its lead actor (Hugh Jackman replaced Brad Pitt) and a drastic reduction in financing -- which could easily have stopped Aronofsky's career in its tracks.

According to Aronofsky, "The Wrestler" symbolizes a break from his past and a new start. "My producer and I broke up as a team, and [for 'The Wrestler'] I used a different director of photography, new production designer, editor, and so it became a new chapter in my filmmaking life," explained the 39-year-old director. "I just really wanted to do something different."

"The Wrestler" follows Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Rourke), an aging wrestler who once filled arenas and now scrapes it out in local gymnasiums and small-time shows. Following a heart attack, he tries to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and romantically pursues a friendly stripper (Marisa Tomei), but finds himself draw back into the ring.

Aronofsky recalled with astonishment the whirlwind weekend that introduced "The Wrestler" to the world. Just days before its premiere last September at the Venice Film Festival, Aronofsky was finishing the film. Then it screened for the first time on a Friday night. Festival organizers told him to stick around for the awards ceremony the next night. The film picked up the main prize, the Golden Lion. Sunday morning, he boarded a plane for the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film screened to a rapturous audience that evening. The film was sold to distributor Fox Searchlight Pictures after an all-night negotiating session.

Since then, the narrative of Rourke's comeback has taken a powerful hold of the media and has been building steam with the public. The actor has been doing a lot of interviews , telling his personal story with a bracing earnestness. Aronofsky has had to accept that Rourke may exaggerate aspects of their working relationship -- "Mickey's a storyteller, if you haven't figured that out," he said -- but the director also believes that "the ends justify the means" for all it took to get the performance from Rourke.