Meeting the wrestler formally known as Stone Cold Steve Austin feels like being back at school again, waiting outside the headmaster’s office to be summoned in to talk.

Except we don’t remember our headmaster having the ability to knock our nose to the back of our head with a look. Steve Austin is about our height, but with the muscle mass of a bungalow attached to each arm. Shaking his hand, it soon becomes apparent how brittle we are compared.

Instantly his southern accent and smile are disarming. He has constant stories of the movie biz, his wrestling career as the infamous ‘Stone Cold’ and seems genuinely excited to be working with some top actors at the moment. So we gave Steve a right good grilling…

Hecklerspray: The tagline for Damage is ‘Pain has a new name’ – will future generations hurt themselves and scream ‘Ahhhh, I’m in soooo much Steve Austin?’

SA: Steve Austin: (Laughing) Stranger things have been said!…That has kinda got a good ring to it. I like that! We’re going to hire you.

HS: I am available for PR.

SA: I can live with that! There have been drinking games invented after me. I’ve heard people watch my DVDs as Stone Cold and take a shot every time I say ‘Hell’ or a swear word! You’d get pretty messed up watching the Stone Cold DVD and listening to my language!

HS: Do you feel like Damage will appeal to fans of your wrestling career?

SA: I think they’ll like it! I think they’ll also like it because it is not just a fight movie – there is a dramatic aspect to it. I’m a big fan of violence, but not gratuitous violence. The violence is a means to an end in the movie and we are telling a story. As me in this movie as John Brickner, who just came out of prison for five years for killing a guy I just thought that was a cloud that hung over the life of John in that movie, and that is the way I played it. In trying to redeem myself, I’m getting involved in a game I don’t want to be in! It puts me in a predicament in what is breaking my parole – even though my parole office doesn’t care – and the potential to kill another man, which,I’m damn sure I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be in those shoes but I am.

I think that the fights will satisfy the people, because they are good ones. But the story – hey – it ain’t Gone with the Wind and it’s probably not gonna win an Oscar, but it is a damn good movie that I am proud of and I think Steve Austin fans will like it.

HS: I think what might surprise them as well is that you inject some comedy into it.

SA: We didn’t want to go over the top with that, but there are moments in there. You have to let the audience up a bit, a bit of humour in there to let you take a breath of fresh air!

HS: Was there a type of film you wanted to pay homage to with Damage? What films do you love?

SA: Jeez! Hard Times, The Mechanic, Bullitt, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Sylvester Stallone stuff! Paul Newman, Cool Hand Luke, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – cool movies like that! Making movies like that, which aren’t really hard-core action movies but just cool movies, is an area I want to get into.

HS: Were the action scenes physically exhausting to film? How much of the stunt work did you do yourself?

SA: All of the fights…I think I did everything! When we were fighting in front of the crowds, we were fighting in silence. Then I told the director ‘Hey man, can we let them yell?’ and when they started yelling my adrenaline shot up! It was almost like being in a mini ring! Now we had a little bit of feedback and it made the action better because we were getting that response. That was a fun thing to do when working on the fight scenes.

It was pretty cold on set and in the one scene where I roll into the vat of oil, but it was a substitute, so it was so cold that every time that me and the guy who played Timmons would hit and block a punch our skin would stick together and when we pulled away it would take a layer of skin! I was like that for nine hours! And the make-up girl kept putting more and more on me. I remember everyone kept saying “Man, you are gonna enjoy that hot shower when you get done”, they were telling me that all day. I remember going to my trailer and they told me “We made sure you’ve got plenty of hot water”. I went to my trailer…cold water! They sent over a bunch of warm towels and I just towelled up in my trailer and rode home in my underwear and a bathrobe. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, they have got a sobriety check around the corner, so the cop pulls us over and I’m sitting there with a robe that is too small and my underwear!

HS: Did he recognise you?

SA: He didn’t even look at me! (Laughs) I was a little disappointed!

HS: You work with an impressive cast and crew on the movie – from Frank Hannah, writer of The Cooler and Walton Goggins from The Shield – being relatively new to movies, was it a great experience being surrounded by all these people?

SA: Absolutely, because you want to be surrounded by the best people you can be. If I am working with someone of my talent I can be as good as I can be. If I’m working with someone like Walton, who is a very good actor, I can raise my game. That puts me in my comfort rather than working on someone on my level. Same on my last movie I just filmed with Adam Beach (on The Stranger), a great actor, which, raises my game.

HS: Coming up, you have The Expendables with Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li and Jason Statham. It is hotly anticipated – what can we expect?

SA: You can expect a lot of action, a lot of great fights, a lot of bullets and a lot of explosions. I think its going to be the coolest movie of 2010! I’m looking forward to seeing it myself. We had a blast making it and I had a blast working with all that star power that is in it.

HS: It’s not like there is any let up with the star power either, everyone is on the same billing.

SA: It was a who’s who of action movie stars. I was new to action but I was really well known as ‘Stone Cold Steve Austin’. So you’ve got all these action guys and you throw Eric Roberts into the mix who is a great, great actor.

HS: What type of movies would you like to explore in the future? Can we assume you’re not going to try and follow Hulk Hogan’s footsteps and make a Mr. Nanny?

SA: You are 100% correct in making that assumption! I wanna do cool movies like the ones I listed before, like the old Bronson, McQueen and Mark Walberg makes some cool movies. Just things that make good sense, I wanna have fun, be challenged and grow as an actor!

Steve Austin stars in Damage which is available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray now. Read our review here and check out the trailer below!

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A little bit of sick has just come up into our mouth.

We knew that Stallone was a fan of whipping deceased stallions, but until now we thought Schwarzenegger had some pride. But something – the idea of recapturing his youth, the lure of making another bathful of quids, or the devastating effects of dementia – has convinced Arnie it would be a great idea for him to appear in Stallone’s latest film.

You know, we believe that old people can do pretty much anything young folk can. Be it chasing skirt, cutting off dogs’ bollocks or being unable to ever escape your 30-year-old child sex conviction, old people still rock! That said, if we ever found out that our 75-year-old neighbour was planning on showing film of himself dressed in nothing more than a furry loincloth and a sheen of baby oil, we would definitely have a whisper in his ear advising him against it. Then we’d have a really loud shout in his ear, because he doesn’t hear too well these days. And then we’d call the police.

Are you listening, Schwarzeneighbours?

It wasn’t always like this. Many years ago, Stallone and Schwarzenegger were musclebound behemoths, straddling the action movie genre like… well, a pair of musclebound behemoths. Time was cruel, though: Sly went and got all “boohoo, I’m such a big fat bloater,” while Arnie went and got all like “help me, I need a heart bypass but only because I smoke cigars and no way because of steroid abuse.”

Arnie realised the gig was up, and left movies to become the Mayor of Fairyland or something. Sly though – sticking two gnarled and withered fingers up at Father Time – lost weight, began shoving fistfuls of growth hormones down his gob and somehow convinced people with money to let him make at least the third and fourth worst instalments of the Rocky and Rambo softcore gay porn franchises.

And now Stallone has persuaded Schwarzenegger that it would be a good idea for them both to get their raddled old bitchtits out in his upcoming film, The Expendables. We can only assume that Arnie was confused when he was being given the pitch, and that he believed he was actually signing up to receive money from a deposed Nigerian prince.

Perhaps we aren’t being fair. Who knows, this could turn out to be a rebirth for what were once two much loved actors. Please, Firstshowing.net, tell us more and don’t spare the crazy:

The Expendables will follow a team of “expendable” mercenaries on a mission to overthrow a South American dictator. The names of the five mercenaries are Hale Caesar, Kong Kao, Christmas, Barney Ross, and Gunnar. In addition to the casting scoop, Stallone revealed to AICN that Jet Li would be fighting Dolph Lundgren at one point in the movie.

Garrggh!

This is unparalleled genius! Someone has realised that what the world wants to see – in 2009 – is Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger flapping their bingo wings around in a film which also has Jet Li fighting Dolph Lundgren. This film cannot fail. Nothing can halt its glorious ride to celluloid immortality.

But wait, we have even more casting info:

The Expendables, which already has Jason Statham signed up…

Oh.

Cocks.

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That’s if you believe the hype. If you don’t believe the hype you’ll realise that Mickey Rourke was lucky enough to be cast in a movie that required a washed-up squidge-faced dumbbell who cries a lot as a star. But either way, thanks to The Wrestler Mickey Rourke is back in business.

So how is Mickey Rourke going to continue of his run of critically-acclaimed highbrow movies? By co-starring in a low-rent film about Sylvester Stallone killing everything. Whoops.

The Wrestler is something of a once-in-a-lifetime movie role for Mickey Rourke. In it, he gets to do what he’s good at – which is basically beat people up – while looking all sad because he’s not really that famous any more. Until someone writes a film called Barry The Nightclub Doorman Who Suffers From Nonspecific Anxiety Disorder, there won’t ever be a film better suited to Mickey Rourke than The Wrestler.

Of course, with all the praise and mountains of award nominations he’s received for The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke runs the very real risk of being typecast as the hasbeen beefcake in serious films that are lauded by his peers and constantly nominated for the highest honours in the movie industry. And Mickey Rourke wouldn’t want that, would he?

And that’s why the first film that Mickey Rourke has agreed to appear in after the wave of renewed interest in him stirred up by The Wrestler is The Expendables, which appears to be a sort of Kwik Save knock-off version of The Dirty Dozen. Variety reports:

Mickey Rourke has joined the ranks of “The Expendables,” joining the ensemble of the Sylvester Stallone-directed action adventure for Nu Image/Millennium Films. Rourke will play an unscrupulous arms dealer who becomes the go-to guy for a group of mercenaries planning to topple a South American dictator.

OK, OK, we get it. Sylvester Stallone did the whole art mirroring life thing with Rocky Balboa where he got to play a past-it old beefcake who cries a lot, and now he’s getting Mickey Rourke – a man who’s just done the exact same thing – to be in The Expendables with him. Wow, talk about over-egging the pudding. You’re both expendable. We understand. Jeez. But at least that’s it, right?

Well, no. Also signed up for The Expendables alongside Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke are expendable middle-aged cage fighter Randy Couture, expendable goon du jour Jason Statham, expendable faded kung-fu legend Jet Li and expendable blonde Sylvester Stallone Dolph Lungdren. We could be wrong, but we’re guessing that The Expendables is going to feature a lot of product placement by Stannah Stairlifts.

Best of all, The Expendables isn’t even going to being shooting until March, so there’s plenty of time for Sylvester Stallone to recruit all the other actors who Hollywood has casually tossed aside over the years, including Steven Seagal, Burt Reynolds, Cuba Gooding Jr, Heath Ledger, the ghost of Marlon Brando, with a special guest appearance by The Puppet Corpse Of Orson Welles as a hardbitted lieutenant who doesn’t play by the rules.

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