Mickey Rourke talked about his upcoming
role playing out rugby star Gareth Thomas during a recent appearance
on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Thomas retired from rugby roughly 2
years after he announced that he's gay. The 40-year-old Welshman's
coming out inspired other professional athletes to come out,
including English
cricketer Steven Michael Davies and Swedish footballer (European
soccer) Anton
Hysen.
Rourke told Kimmel that he moved to Los
Angeles about 2 and a half years ago to train for the part.
“I came out here about 2 and a half
years ago to train for this rugby movie I've been writing for about 4
and a half years,” Rourke said. “I based it on … There's a
whole bunch of different athletes that have come out in the last 3 or
4 years.”
“So it's taken about 3 years of
steady training, because I went into the locker room and I was
looking at these guys and … I never saw such physical specimens as
these guys are.”
“There's a scene where I'm in the
bathtub with another guy and I have the teeth actually on the bathtub
[edge] before we,” he said while making a hugging gesture.
“Well that makes sense. There are
some advantages to not having teeth,” Kimmel joked.
Rourke laughed and the pair fist
bumped. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)