Celebrity Mound

Now that Mickey Rourke (above) is back in the spotlight, he’s got hordes of desperate fame-whores trying to hook up with him. First there was Bai Ling, and now a Russian “model/pop star” has leaked to local Russkie papers that she’s going to marry “The Wrestler” star. According to culturebuzz.com, Irson Kudikova, 26, met Rourke during his Moscow shoots for “Iron Man 2,” in which he plays a Russian gangster — and Kudikova claims they’re dating and about to be engaged. We’ll believe it when we see it. Rourke’s reps didn’t return calls.

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Chris Jericho isn’t messing around with Mickey Rourke. The real-life wrestler promises that when “The Wrestler” Oscar nominee attends this year’s Wrestlemania, he’s going to give Rourke the bitch slap that will be heard “round the world.”

“I will get out of the ring, walk over to Mickey, and slap him in the face,” Jericho announces.

The feud between the WWE superstar and Hollywood’s comeback kid kicked off at the SAG Awards, when Rourke boasted he could kick the two-time world heavyweight champ’s butt. Big mistake!

During Rourke’s “Larry King Live” interview in January, Jericho appeared via satellite and challenged the actor. Mickey backed down. “Would I box him in a boxing ring or a bareknuckle match? Yeah. Wrestling? That’s his world. That’s what this man does,” he said.

Jericho is not taking any threats lying down. “I’m going to buy Mickey a ringside seat. Hell, I’ll even buy one for his dog!” he tells us. “This is a promise. Those seats are $2,500 each, and Mickey Rourke is invited to bring as many dogs, cats, gerbils as he wants. If he finds a cockroach or two, he can bring them as well. I’ll reserve seats for his whole traveling zoo if I have to.”

Rourke plans to attend the 25th anniversary event April 5 at Reliant Stadium in Houston to support wrestler pals Jimmy Snuka, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper and Ricky Steamboat. And he’d better be in his seat — Jericho says he intends to make good on his promise.

“If Mickey isn’t sitting in the front row, I’ll go to the bar or the bathroom, wherever, and find him and slap him across the face,” says Jericho. He goes on to predict, “I think he’s going to stand there and take it. I’ll hand him the microphone and he’s going to apologize, and I’ll just keep smacking him in the face until he gets the hint.”

Although Jericho has his own acting aspirations, he claims his anger stems from seeing someone go outside what he knows.

“I appreciate Mickey’s talent as an actor, and that’s why I think he’s an inspiration and a mentor in a lot of ways,” he says. “It’s Mickey as a person I have a problem with. He blurred the line between fantasy and reality. There’s a big difference with playing a wrestler and actually being one. Mickey has been asking for this for years.”

Rourke’s management team did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails for comment.

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Even if Mickey Rourke goes the distance and wins an Oscar tomorrow night, what more can he possibly say?

Not that he’d exactly been holding back at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs, but the 56-year-old comeback kid outdid himself Saturday while accepting the trophy for Best Male Lead at the 2009 Film Independent’s Spirit Awards, where his star vehicle, The Wrestler, won a leading three honors, including Best Feature and Best Cinematography.

Part paean to Eric Roberts (“the f—kin’ man”), part elegy for his dog Loki, part ramble and all tailor-made for pay cable, Rourke’s speech at the notoriously quirky beachside kudosfest either scared the crap out of the Motion Picture Academy or, as The Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky noted backstage, could prove to be the best possible thing for the Oscar’s declining ratings.

“Like I got, he deserves a second chance,” Rourke said of Roberts, who eventually yelled, “Accept your award!” at the man onstage.

“I just got done talking to the Santa Monica Police Department,” Rourke continued. “They gave me a bed to sleep in 10 years ago. And I thank them—I asked them for two pillows, they told me to f–k off. But anyway, thank you, Darren Aronofsky, for believing in me…I’ve told people in the past that directors like [him] come around every 25 years…He is one tough son of a bitch and he don’t like it when I say that ’cause he goes, ‘Mickey, you’ll scare all the other actors away from me.’ But Darren, you know what, if they ain’t got the balls to bring it, then f–k ‘em, you know.”

He then forgets costar Marisa Tomei’s name—but gives her quite the shout-out anyway—and thanks the WWE and Vince McMahon for being so supportive while their film exposed the seedier side of pro wrestling–”like steroids and the cocaine and the bangin’ the girl…in the bathroom.”

And there was more, but there were other awards handed out, too.

“I had a good time up there,” beanie-topped presenter Philip Seymour Hoffman said backstage. “He had a lot to say.”

“Who can follow that?” agreed Tom McCarthy, onstage to accept his Best Director award for The Visitor.

Other major winners with Oscar aspirations were Milk, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Frozen River, which swept the remaining acting categories with respective trophies for Best Supporting Male James Franco, Best Supporting Female Penélope Cruz and Best Female Lead Melissa Leo.

Both Cruz and Leo, who beat out Anne Hathaway today, have shots at Oscar gold tomorrow.

“They told me here it’s important to say whatever you want and to swear—a lot. So I’ll stick to my character in the movie,” said a radiant Cruz, clad in a ruffly brown Alaïa dress.

“I’m always surprised when I hear my name,” she told reporters backstage. “If I win [tomorrow] I want to be surprised. I don’t want to expect it. If I don’t win, I want to have a great night.”

But first, she had a great day at the Spirit Awards, held as always in a big white tent on the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., where the vibe is more scarves and leggings than Harry Winston and Chanel and films that cost as little as $500,000 to make get credit where credit is due.

That’s how we roll here at the Spirit Awards,” quipped host Steve Coogan. “Who needs the Oscars, that world of back-slapping, that orgy of self-congratulation for the beautiufl people?

I look around me toay and I see people who are beautiful on the inside. At least, I hope you are. Nature can’t be that cruel.”

Best Foreign-Language Film honors went to festival darling The Class, the first French film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes since 1987, while Best Documentary was handed to Man on Wire, about Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.

Sorry to spoil the ending for you, but Petit was in the audience today to cheer on director James Marsh.

Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black won for Best First Screenplay and Woody Allen won for zillionth Best Screenplay for Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synechdoche , New York, was also a two-timer, snagging its helmer a Best First Feature award and receiving the second annual Robert Altman Award, which honors Altmanesque ensemble work.

Also among those chillaxin’ by the beach today were Justin Bateman, Ellen Page, Aaron Eckhart, Jon Hamm, Blair Underwood, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Monaghan, Laura Dern, Mary-Kate Olsen, Ben Kingsley, Claire Danes, John C. Reilly, Thomas Hayden Church, Andie MacDowell, Emile Hirsch, Cameron Diaz, John Waters, Zooey Deschanel and Michael Bolton, whom Coogan duly thanked for saving his old hair and loaning it to Rourke to use in The Wrestler.
Here’s the complete list of winners from the 2009 Film Independent’s Spirit Awards:

• Best Feature: The Wrestler
• Male Lead: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
• Female Lead: Melissa Leo, Frozen River
• Supporting Male: James Franco, Milk
• Supporting Female: Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Director: Tom McCarthy, The Visitor
• Screenplay: Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• First Feature: Charlie Kaufman, Synechdoche, New York
• First Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Cinematography: Maryse Alberti, The Wrestler
Documentary: Man on Wire
Foreign-Language Film: The Class
Producers Award: Heather Rae, Frozen River and Ibid
John Cassavetes Award: In Search of a Midnight Kiss
Someone to Watch Award: Lynn Shelton, My Effortless Brilliance
Truer Than Fiction Award: Margaret Brown, The Order of Myths
Robert Altman Award: Synechdoche, New York

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Jessica Alba and Mickey Rourke

Rainn Wilson

Teri Hatcher

Cameron Diaz

Penelope Cruz and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black

Mary-Kate Olsen and Sir Ben Kingsley

Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Dern

Michelle Williams

With Mickey Rourke basically a lock to win Best Actor for his performance in The Wrestler, the only lingering mystery around this weekend’s Oscar ceremony is who he’ll bring as his date. So, when we ran into him at last night’s Domenico Vacca show at Bryant Park (this is Rourke’s first Fashion Week in thirteen years, if you can believe it), we asked him to spoil that surprise, too. Since it won’t be his Chihuahua, who will accompany Rourke to the Kodak Theatre on Sunday? “Unfortunately, my agent,” he told us in defeat.

But so what if ICM’s David Unger doesn’t look good in a dress — at least he’s battling Marvel for a bigger paycheck for Rourke for his rumored role as a villain in Iron Man 2, right? “Right now, we’re not doing Iron Man 2,” Rourke told us grimly.

He did have some good news, though. Following the widespread disappointment over his canceled appearance at the upcoming WrestleMania 25, Rourke told us he’ll still be there, just not in the ring: “We’re gonna go in support. Vince McMahon, Roddy Piper, and Rick Flair have been such a part of the movie … So whatever support I can give back to all those people from WWE, I’m gonna do that.”

We only had time for one last question, so we asked who torpedoed Rourke’s plans to actually wrestle at WrestleMania, him or his publicist? Since his flack answered for him (“We don’t need to talk about that”), and then pulled him away, we’re going to assume that it wasn’t Rourke.

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Mickey Rourke has received critical acclaim for his comeback role in “The Wrestler,” where he plays a former pro wrestling legend who falls on hard times.

And on the red carpet at the 15th Annual SAG Awards on Sunday night in Hollywood, the actor revealed he’s about to get in the ring in real life.

Rourke will be participating in WWE’s “Wrestlemania 25” in Houston on April 5.

“The boys from the WWE called me and asked me to do it,” Rourke told Access Hollywood. “I said, ‘I want to.’ I’m talking with [WWE legend] Rowdy Roddy Piper about it.”

In fact, Rourke, whose role in “The Wrestler” earned him a SAG nomination for Best Actor (as well as an Academy Award nomination and a win at the Golden Globes earlier this month), said the professional wrestling industry has been extremely supportive of his portrayal of the sport.

“The nicest thing has been the whole wrestling community embracing us,” Rourke said on the red carpet. “The movie was about their world.”

And when he does jump into the ring with WWE, it appears the actor may already have his sights set on an opponent.

“Chris Jericho, you better get in shape,” Rourke added. “Because I’m coming after your a**.”

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MICKEY Rourke (above) is already reaping the benefits of his comeback. The star of “The Wrestler” was at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood the other night with Sean Penn and his long-suffering wife, Robin Wright Penn, when, our witnesses said, Rourke was accosted by fame-craving Bai Ling (also pictured above). Rourke was only too happy to oblige the Chinese-born actress and the two “made out and partied pretty hard.”

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Gossip Web sites are abuzz with sightings of the newly single Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke, her much older costar in The Wrestler. But the actress – who split from rocker Marilyn Manson last month – wants the world to know that they’re just friends.

“Spread the word – I’m not dating Mickey Rourke,” Wood said at Sunday’s Hollywood Life 3rd annual Behind the Camera Awards in Hollywood. “Everybody thinks we’re dating and we’re not.”

That’s a sentiment the 21-year-old actress reiterated in an exclusive statement said: “Mickey and I bonded while shooting The Wrestler and we became friends, but nothing more. I guess, because of my recent break up, I will be linked to many people, but I am not interested in pursuing a relationship at this point in my life. Any such rumor should not be taken seriously.”

She continued, “We are proud of the film we made together and I hope people will focus on the film and not get distracted by any nonsense.”

Rourke, 52, also denied the so-called romance. When asked Saturday if they two had begun dating, he said, “No, no. I’m a big fan of hers and she’s a big fan of mine.” (Although the costars – along with the rest of The Wrestler cast – were in Las Vegas Saturday, Wood did not join Rourke at Tao’s three-year anniversary party.)

Rumor Control
It’s been a tough few days of rumor control for Wood, who, on Friday, also refuted gossip surrounding her breakup.

“Manson and I both decided to take some time apart so we could concentrate on work,” the actress said at the time, addressing stories that they’d fought bitterly about her brother. “Someone used that opportunity to kick us while we were down and sell a completely false story.”

On Sunday, Wood insisted she’s coping well with the split.

“It’s not the nasty thing everybody thinks it is. I’m doing fine, as best as can be expected …,” she said. “Right now, I’m just enjoying being on my own.”

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MICKEY Rourke is making a miracle comeback in “The Wrestler,” which just won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. In the Darren Aronofsky-directed movie, which co-stars Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, Rourke plays a washed-up grappler getting back into the ring. Variety gushes that Rourke “creates a galvanizing, humorous, deeply moving portrait that instantly takes [its] place among the great, iconic screen performances.”

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