Peter Sciretta: But when the project was first announced, well obviously Nicholas Cage was attached, what happened?
Darren Aronofsky: There was a window where it was very very hard, basically no one wanted to make it with Mickey Rourke. We couldnt get money to do it. Just because of how independent films get sold now is on foreign value, and Mickey just doesnt have enough for what we needed. So there was a brief flirtation with Nic Cage because Nic really liked the script. But Nic was a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but you know, Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and his old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity with Mickey so he pulled himself out of the race. Then an executive producer named Jennifer Roth came on who is great at doing independent films and she was like, What if thats the amount of money you got, lets just figure out a way to do it. So we just did it. So we did things which actually work with the style ? Instead of getting a thousand extras we worked with these different wrestling promotions and actually put on live promotions and then stuck Mickey smack in the middle of it. It added to a whole new flavor of it but we got the authenticity that came with that as well.