26/01/2025
What idiot said “Never meet your idols”?!.
MICKEY ROURKE photographed by Steve Read 2009, Blakes Hotel, London.
I got a last minute call from the team behind Rio Ferdinand’s #5 Magazine… “You fancy shooting Mickey Rourke tonight?.. Pete got us an ‘in’ through a mate of his, Mickey’s driver/minder. We entered the bedroom for what was meant to be five minutes, me on camera, Crouchie on lights, and Owen on questions, to find a Hollywood legend, one that has been out of the limelight for some years but soon to be BAFTA and Golden Globe Best Actor 2009… The Resurrection, in wife be**er vest, an outstanding carved leather FTW belt and Marlborough burning at the waist, by far the coolest bloke I’d ever seen. I’d loved his films since jam sandwiches came out. The publicist said “Mickey, put that nice shirt on”… I said “No need, really, there’s no need, he’s fine.”
Owen’s great interview was mostly about boxing, he’d had a few fights himself in and outside the ring, as is well documented. I asked him to take off his glasses, seldom done but he did. His look here is a proud one… “This is who I am, this is Mickey Rourke, take it or leave it… I took it. We left half an hour later, Owen with the belt for his uncle and me with this previously unseen portrait, one of the pictures I’m most proud of.
Up til now unseen, the picture has recently been printed 16x20” in the darkroom, on silver gelatin by the great Robin Bell, part of a fast growing collection of portraits we’re collaborating on, coming to a wall near you soon. Exciting stuff.
The Oscar btw went to Sean Penn for ‘Milk’.
Copyright Steve Read 2025
