Last May Lee Hill riffed on what killed the Mickey Rourke brand:
“Too much insecurity about what it is to ‘be a man in today’s world’ has derailed so many great American actors. Marlon Brando is at the top of this list. Warren Beatty isn’t on that list because he was addicted to politics and romance (and also managed to work that into his film work). Rourke sought solace in boxing as James Caan did in rodeo and treated his primary gig as a lark.
“I also think that so many actors of a certain generation lacked a formal education beyond high school and relied so heavily on intuition and not always savvy business advice…I’m sure that didn’t help either.
“The bottom line is that people stopped going to Rourke’s films because no one wants to see a great actor coast through a piece of shit movie when they are paying for parking, a babysitter, and trying to forget a shitty day at work, etc.
“And somehow in recent years we have arrived at the opposite extreme with Timothee Chalamet, who would probably start to have a really interesting career when he hits puberty around the age of 45.”
