The life of Mickey Rourke has always played out like a movie of the week. Enduring a rise and fall of spectacular proportions, he�s been given the chance of an unexpected comeback.

The life of Mickey Rourke has always played out like a movie of the week. Enduring a rise and fall of spectacular proportions, he's been given the chance of an unexpected comeback. On the up once again, courtesy of Darren Aronofsky's new film, The Wrestler, he's among the Best Actor nominees at the Golden Globes this Sunday for his role as Randy "The Ram" Robinson.

A former boxer, Rourke acknowledges the parallels between his life and his character. "I related to this because I ruined my career because of my anger and stupidity," he says. An amateur fighter in his teens, he made a misjudged return to the ring 14 years later, after his acting career hit the skids.

After 12 fights in five years, doctors advised him to throw in the towel or permanently risk his health, a scene virtually replicated in The Wrestler after Randy is told his heart may give out if he fights again.

He has made bad career choices, notably turning down Pulp Fiction, Platoon and Rain Man. After splitting from wife Debra Feuer he wed actress Carrie Otis in 1992. They divorced in 1998.

The Wrestler was a painful experience for Rourke. Training for three months before filming gave him a new respect for wrestling. "You don't get hurt like you do in boxing. But because of the adrenaline, you hear the crowd and you give more. You become more reckless. That's why when these wrestlers retire, when they're in their late-thirties or early forties, hardly any of them can walk."

The film paired 52-year-old Rourke with the uncompromising Aronofsky. "I knew he was going to want me to revisit some dark places," he admits. "And I thought, God, I don't know if I want to work that hard and give that much'."

Yet he did. Recalling his brutal upbringing at the hands of a violent stepfather in Miami, he even channelled the pain he felt over the death of his half-sibling Joey, who died of lung cancer in 2004, as inspiration for the film's climactic ringside finale.

While The Wrestler won the coveted Golden Lion last autumn at the Venice Film Festival, Rourke was excluded from taking Best Actor due to a technicality. Still, with the Golden Globes a fair indicator of Oscars, he has a shot at the main prize.

Rourke has a role alongside Kim Basinger in an adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis's The Informers and is shooting the US remake of Russian roulette thriller 13. Today he divides his time between New York and Miami, living alone with just his seven chihuahuas for company.

• The Wrestler opens on January 16.