I Spent So Long Studying

A Reputation Is Really Hard To Live Down.

I Had Achieved So Much Success In My Career And Then Had This Spectacular Fall From Grace That Left Me Unemployed And Living In A Town, Los Angeles, That Is Built On Envy. Once You Fall, People Don't Really Root For You To Come Back Again. I'd Go To Restaurants Where I Always Had The Best Table And Half The Time They Wouldn't Even Let Me Pay. And Then When I Stopped Making Movies, The Same Places Wouldn't Even Give Me A Lousy Table, Never Mind The Best One!

By The End Of The Shoot [of Wrestler], My Trainer Was Pushing Me Up Three Flights Of Stairs To My House And Holding My Arm Like I Was An Old Cripple. I Had Three Mris In The First Two Months Of Working On The Film. I Felt Like It Really Was Over By The Time We Started Shooting The Movie.

The Two Sports Are As Different As Ping-pong And Rugby. In Boxing, You Don’t Know What’s Going To Happen. In Wrestling, It’s Already Prearranged. But The Thing I Didn’t Know About Wrestling Is That You Really Get Hurt. Because, You Know, You’re Wrestling In Front Of A Live Audience, And You End Up Doing Things Like Jumps Or Slams, And 40 Percent Of The Time You Don’t Land Right.

Boxers Are Very Isolated - Or Isolated Within Their Own Camps.