Mickey Rourke humbled by time out

Mickey Rourke admits his time outside of Hollywood taught him to calm down and take a more level approach to the job.

Mickey Rourke learnt not to "tell everybody, 'F**k you,' " during his career downtime.

The veteran actor rose to fame in the 1980s but found no one wanted to cast him when the 90s came around, and he admits he learned how to be humble when no one was interested in him.

He said: "I try not to make the mistakes I made a long time ago, as that's part of what got me out of work.

"My career started in the 80s, it was over in the 90s, so I had 13-14 years to think about the mistakes I made, realising that it's a political business and I can't go around telling everybody, "F*** you," and I understand that. "

However, the 'Immortals' star does think there is a lot of "mediocrity" in Hollywood.

He told Buzzinefilm.com: "I'm okay with knowing that it's business, it's not this pure art-form that I wanted it to be. I thought everybody was going to be like Al Pacino and Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel and De Niro - that kind of actor. I didn't know there was going to be so much grey, so much mediocrity."