You know The Wrestler, the movie about the steroid-taking wrestler who works in a profession where people take steroids a lot?

You’ll never guess what. Someone from The Wrestler has been arrested on suspicion of dealing steroids. Scott Siegel is currently being held without bail after a police chase ended with the arrest in New York yesterday.

Oddly enough, though, Scott Siegel actually played a steroid dealer in The Wrestler. This, we’re certain, is the most dead-on case of art imitating life we’ve seen since Kate Winslet starred in Revolutionary Road and then turned into a full-time annoyingly weepy turdbucket.

The reason why The Wrestler was so critically acclaimed on its release was because of how real it all felt. You could believe that Mickey Rourke was a knackered old hasbeen from the 1980s having one last roll of the dice because that’s exactly what he was at the time.

Needless to say, he wouldn’t be quite so believable if the movie was made now – unless The Wrestler was about a funny-looking dandy in a purple suit and a pair of ladies’ sunglasses who harboured a bizarre chihuahua fixation, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, the gritty realism in The Wrestler stretched beyond Mickey Rourke to some of the smaller parts as well. Like Scott Siegel, for instance. Siegel had a small part in The Wrestler as Greg, a local steroid dealer and – what do you know – he’s just been arrested for dealing steroids. BBC News reports:

Scott Siegel, 34, is being held without bail on drug dealing and assault charges after police seized 1,500 bottles thought to contain steroids. The bottles, and thousands of dollars in cash, were found in searches of his home and his parents’ home. He was arrested after a chase involving his car and several police vehicles. Siegel smashed through a fence and rammed three police cars and two Drug Enforcement Agency vehicles.

To be honest, we don’t know how Scott Seigel’s arrest will affect The Wrestler‘s chances at the Oscars this weekend. On one hand the film is now more authentic than ever, but on the other hand the Academy won’t want to be seen associating with steroids.

Just look at Rambo, for example – after Sylvester Stallone got into trouble with Australian customs over all his Human Growth Hormone possession, the film didn’t get a sniff at the Oscars. And that’s definitely because of the steroid thing, and not just because Rambo was a glorified B-movie that couldn’t literally have been stupider had it been directed by a cauliflower in a shoebox. Probably.

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The last time Mickey Rourke put aside acting to focus on professional fighting, it ended as badly as you’d imagine.

It ended with Sylvester Stallone‘s Get Carter remake. Ugh. But Mickey Rourke isn’t a man who repeats his mistakes – apart from the mistake involving him having haphazard cosmetic surgery procedure done on his face. And that’s why Mickey Rourke has decided he’ll no longer fight at April’s Wrestlemania.

We’re appalled. Without Mickey Rourke, who at Wrestlemania will provide our fill of tragic, borderline-decrepit ageing beefcakes who essentially make their living as performing monkeys? All the other wrestlers? Oh.

Mickey Rourke is the king of bad ideas. Giving up acting at the height of his fame to become a largely rubbish professional boxer, apparently having all his plastic surgery performed by an angry gibbon with scalpels for hands, Another Nine 1/2 Weeks – these are not the actions of a man with a long-term goal.

And even now that Mickey Rourke is the toast of Hollywood after playing himself in the movie Look, It’s Mickey Rourke In A Blonde Wig, he still doesn’t seems to have given up his old addiction to bad ideas. That’s why he’ll soon be starring in the latest Sylvester Stallone film, why he’s officially become the face of amputated dog testicles, and why he’d been planning to have his face beaten into a concave plasticine pizza at this year’s Wrestlemania.

Earlier this week it was announced that, to pay tribute to those who inspired his role in The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke would be appearing at Wrestlemania this year, possibly by fighting Chris Jericho. And it would have been must-see entertainment, so long as your definition of ‘must-see’ involves an old man, two pairs of borderline-obscene lycra unitards, tens of thousands of rednecks and at least one career-threatening injury.

But now, we’re sad to report that Mickey Rourke has now backed out of Wrestlemania. Access Hollywood reports:

“Mickey was very honored to be asked as he has the greatest respect for WWE however he will not be participating in ‘Wrestlemania,’” the actor’s rep said in a statement to Access Hollywood. “He is focusing entirely on his acting career.”

This isn’t a huge surprise – if you saw this painfully awkward showdown between Mickey Rourke and Chris Jericho on Tuesday’s Larry King, you’ll know you may as well have spent three minutes watching a giant flashing sign reading ‘UNCOMFORTABLE SECOND THOUGHTS’…

Some are saying that Mickey Rourke is backing out of Wrestlemania because it would have been the quickest way for him to lose his Oscar. Playing a wrestler in a story that uncomfortably mirrors your own life is one thing – but actually being a wrestler for a night, without the opportunity to launch into a desperate tear-filled soliloquy at the end to show your emotional range? Piss off.

Would Sean Penn do that, huh? Would Sean Penn stand in the middle of an arena and have a chair smashed into his face by a seven-foot monster who’d been pumped full of steroids? No. No he bloody well wouldn’t.

Nice thought, though, isn’t it?

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Some would say that Mickey Rourke’s face looks like an uncooked hamburger patty that’s been trampled by a marching band.

But not us. We’d say that Mickey Rourke’s face doesn’t look enough like an uncooked hamburger patty that’s been trampled by a marching band. And we think Mickey Rourke agrees with us.

Why? Because it’s been hinted that Mickey Rourke – from The Wrestler, remember – will wrestle Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania in April. One-sided? Relax! After Wrestlemania there’s going to be a rematch to see who can sob the most incoherently on a beach, a bout that Rourke will easily win.

You know what there’s not enough of? Actors promoting their work by taking on the real-life job of the characters they play. It’d be great – George Clooney could market his return to ER by literally slicing a man open and fumbling around inside his guts until he yanks out what he assumes is a spleen, while Julia Roberts could have easily improved her Oscar chances for Pretty Woman by literally having grubby, meaningless sex with a string of lonely men for cash.

No, of course we’re just joking. Only an idiot would take on a job that they’ve only really done before for the sake of a movie. It’s probably the stupidest thing that anyone could ever do. It’s not just stupid, but arrogant too. So it’s a good job that actors aren’t either stupid or arrogant, isn’t it? Oh, hang on a minute…

We forgot about Mickey Rourke. The Wrestler has been good to Mickey Rourke – it’s established his position as an acting behemoth, plus it’s allowed him to take on other challenges as varied as being in Iron Man 2 and pleading with the public to smash off their pet’s testicles with a hammer. Or something.

And because of this, Mickey Rourke wants to give something back to the people that inspired his character in The Wrestler - the old, beaten-down, injury-ravaged former wrestlers who are all guaranteed to die tragically young in poverty-stricken agony. And it looks like Mickey Rourke is going to accomplish that by becoming one of them himself.

That’s right, as E! Online reports, Mickey Rourke is going to Wrestlemania:

“The nicest thing has been the whole wrestling community embracing us. The movie was about their world and so I think maybe I’m gonna do Wrestlemania in Houston. I had some dialogue with Vince McMahon and Ric Flair, Roddy Piper and all the rest of them and they’ve been really supportive… Chris Jericho, you better get in shape, because I’m coming after your ass.”

It might seem a little strange at first – The Wrestler carries an unsubtle anti-wrestling sentiment at times, so Mickey Rourke promoting it by appearing at Wrestlemania is a little like Reese Witherspoon promoting Rendition by kidnapping a stranger, flying him to Egypt and then booting him in the balls for eight months until he confesses to a crime he didn’t do.

But you know what? Good for Mickey Rourke. If he thinks his body is up to the rigours of professional wrestling, then all the best to him. And if worst comes to worst, it might take a doctor up to three minutes to remould his face. His skin is like Play-Doh, we heard.

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Yesterday we implied that Mickey Rourke’s comeback would consist of The Wrestler, a rubbish Stallone movie and nothing else.

Turns out we couldn’t have been more wrong. Mickey Rourke is hot property again – and he’s proving it by also starring in Iron Man 2. According to reports, Iron Man director Jon Favreau is keen to have Rourke play the movie’s villain.

It’s bittersweet news, really – Mickey Rourke must be thrilled by the enthusiasm in which he’s been re-embraced by Hollywood, but it’ll be a bitter blow to The Puppet Corpse Of Orson Welles. He really had his eye on that part, you know.

Over the next couple of years or so, there’s a chance you’ll be seeing Mickey Rourke’s face more often than you’ll actually see your own. And, no, for once that won’t be because you’re hounded by a recurring dream that involves you being chased through a cave by a slurring monster whose face appears to be made entire out of flan – it’s because Mickey Rourke is going to be in just about every film made within the next few years.

Thanks to the critical acclaim heaped upon his performance in The Wrestler – aka The Story of Mickey Rourke, In A Wig – everyone wants a piece of Mickey Rourke these days. As we reported yesterday, Mickey has signed up to join the cast of Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables, but that’s not all.

Just to prove that there’s more to him than movies about former box office giants who bottomed out and spent years in the wilderness before finally gaining reacceptance from their Hollywood peers, Mickey Rourke is apparently close to landing a starring role in Iron Man 2, a film starring Robert Downey Jr – a former box office giant who bottomed out and spent years in the wilderness before… oh tits, he’s done it again hasn’t it?

Anyway according to the Hollywood Reporter:

Marvel has been keeping a very tight lid on the script for the sequel, being written by Justin Theroux, but it is known that Rourke would play a tattooed Russian heavy named Ivan who becomes Whiplash, a man with deadly, technologically enhanced coils.

A Russian heavy with deadly, technologically enhanced coils? We’re not even sure we know what that means. However, we’re fairly certain that if Mickey Rourke takes this Iron Man 2 role, the character description should probably be changed to ‘a crying Russian heavy with deadly, technologically enhanced coils who’s found himself on the outs and is determined to make one last shot at glory in the field of having deadly, technologically enhanced coils. Possibly.

And that’s not all – as well as The Expendables and Iron Man 2, IMDb says that Mickey Rourke has also got upcoming roles in The Informers, Killshot, 13 and Sin City 2. And there’s a rumour he’ll be playing the lead in High School Musical 4. Plus he’ll be playing Samantha in the next Sex And The City movie. Plus if you film anything on your mobile phone between now and Christmas 2010, Mickey Rourke is legally obliged to hang around crying in the background of every shot in a creepy way to ensure that nothing is ever made that he doesn’t appear in.

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This is Mickey Rourke’s year – by Christmas he’ll have won an Oscar, become the biggest star on Earth and colonised the moon.

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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