I'm waiting on a couch inside with an English colleague, Garth Pearce. We were supposed to meet Rourke two hours before.

He asked us back. Perhaps this is the interview and we're part of what's going on.

He comes back into the room, as the girl leaves, saying: "I needed some fresh air from all the bullshit."

So who's the girl? "I met her last night and I was drinking, " he says. "I woke up and she wasn't in the room and I thought, what the f . . . happened. Maybe I didn't perform well or something. But what happened was that she said she was going home to get some different clothes. Then she came back and knocked the door, but I was sound asleep. So I woke up this morning and it was like, where is the girl?"

How is her English? "No English. That is what we like. No strings attached. It is easier that way."

Rourke is supposed to be putting his life and his career back together. He grew up in a dysfunctional family in the tough area of Miami known as Liberty City. "I learned to fight . . . or run. You have to. But then if you go too far you end up like my stepbrothers who are in and out of prison for the last 20 years. They have become institutionalised, they are only comfortable in jail. All the men in my family died in their 30s or 40s for three generations, thanks to drink. I am not going to f**king do that."

Handy with his fists, he worked out his anger in the boxing ring scoring 17 knockouts as an amateur before breaking into Hollywood playing the ruthless arsonist who teaches William Hurt to plant a car bomb in Body Heat, and then as Kim Basinger's kinky lover in the erotic thriller in 91/2 Weeks. He had Hollywood at his feet but blew it all in a series of bust-ups that made him unbankable.

"I don't know what went wrong, " he says.

"I know I am a good actor and I was very arrogant about that and very selfish and destructive. I felt like I deserved whatever I thought it was. Now I feel I don't deserve shit. I just feel grateful to be here."

Suddenly he's back on a roll. Robert Rodriguez let him loose him in Sin City, a wildly over the top adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel thriller Sin City. He played Marv, a hulking down on his luck bruiser who gets lucky one night with a beautiful woman, but at dawn she is dead . . .

and Marv is determined to find her killer no matter the cost. Miller said; "When I met Mickey, he lumbered into the room practically taking out the door jamb and I wrote down a note: 'Met Mickey Rourke.

He IS Marv.'" Rourke says; "I went out and bought the book at a comic store after talking to Frank. I'd never been in a comic book store in my entire life and I certainly wasn't used to reading comic books. But when I read the story of Marv I was excited because here was this far-out looking cat who had lots of interesting things to say and do, and I thought, wow, this is going to be really different and fun."

Rourke, whose battered face looks as if it's still got some of the prosthetics from playing Marv, gets to act tough again with Keira Knightley in Tony Scott's Domino, an action thriller . . . just released on DVD . . .

about the daughter of actor Lawrence Harvey who became a bounty hunter and made her name hunting down outlaws before committing suicide last summer.

"Keira is a real cool girl, " he says. "She's well read, smart, broke her arse to play it not like a waif. She is a whole real person who has something to offer and say. I think she will stick around for a long time."

When his first marriage to Debra Feuer broke up he more or less quit Hollywood altogether to become a professional boxer, making his debut in 1991 in Florida by winning a four-round decision over Steve Powell. "I just wanted to give it a shot, test myself that way physically while I still had time, " he says.

Sparring with world champions James Toney and Carlos Monzon, he scored several knockouts before retiring unbeaten in 1994. "I was four fights away from a title fight, but they did the neural test and I failed it twice. The doctor said, 'Mickey, you can not get hit in the head any more times'. I was losing short term memory. I took the doctor's advice, but it ate me. I have not known a fighter yet who did not want one more. I could not have one."

He was charged with spousal abuse in 1994. His second wife, the model Carrie Otis, eventually dumped him.

Now he claims he wants her back.

"It was all my own fault, " he says. "I don't blame her for not wanting me back. I wouldn't want me back. I miss her for every second of every day and every night, but I f**ked up. I blame myself. When I lost my house, my wife walked out the door and I had no money and my entourage, who I thought were my friends, all pissed off. And I was passing a mirror in my bathroom and saw myself. I thought: no wonder it has all gone. You f**king animal. I realised, because I am a Catholic, that I did not blow my f**king brains out. I wanted to. I even asked a priest if I could. He said no. I have a priest I talk to in New York, being Irish and that. Me and Father Pete, we go into this basement. He likes red wine and Camel cigarettes. I go down for confession. So we have a confession like this. A lovely guy, you would love him."

Francis Coppola put Rourke back on the tracks. "Studio guys were telling him to get 'someone like Mickey Rourke' for the character of the bruiser in 1997's Rain Maker. Francis said to them, but Mickey Rourke is still out there, still working, why not just get him? The studio was hesitant, Francis made it happen. He ended up adding several scenes for me."

So is this comeback for real? "Before, I was driving a bus with two wheels out of control. Now, I have to march the line. I realise that. I gotta chance. It's not as if I have been away for a year or two. It has been 14 years. I did not think I would be invited back to the party. I thought it was over.

"I took six years to go back to fighting.

That was done several years ago. I said, okay, I am going to act now. But it was not that simple. It was not going to happen. My behaviour, going back to boxing, being out of control, the lifestyle I was living, and the people I was associating with. People were really afraid. I went and got some advice and worked real hard with someone to fix all the broken parts."

That someone was a shrink, whom he visited three times a week. "I am now down to once a week and a phone call, " he says.

"We don't want to let Marv out again. He wants to come out and play. And he can't. I cannot go through all the rejection, shame and humiliation. I have had 13 or 14 years of that crap. Through working with the doctor, I realised it was not everyone else . . .

it was me. I f**ked up, big time. I think what happened is that everyone has an essence, which is the core of us. I had abandonment. So I had shame. I did not want to have shame and abandonment, it turned into anger. That was more comfortable for me. Then I was able to turn that off, understanding where it came from.

"It was like seeing Mike Tyson . . .

whatever he does, there are those ghosts from the past and it is not very pretty. I brought that to the dance. Now, with a lot of hard work . . . change is hard . . . I thought I could change in six months to a year or two.

"But five, six or seven years go by and I am still working at it. I guess right now, it is paying off. I have consistency now.

Consistency was not in my vocabulary."

Hollywood seems ready to buy the new Mickey Rourke. He's gone from Domino to shooting a $40 million teen super-spy adventure Stormbreaker in the Isle of Man.

He stars as the megalomaniac businessman who is the nemesis of a 14year-old special agent, Alex Rider.

There are hopes of developing it into a Bond-style franchise. The cast also includes Alicia Silverstone, Damian Lewis and In America star Sarah Bolger. Ewan McGregor appears as Alex's super-spy uncle. "I'm okay for kids now, " says Rourke.

"I must be doing something right. All I'm hoping is to be able to work. I think my best work is still ahead of me. I think all that I've gone through has made me a better person."

So what will he do tonight?

"Find the girl, " he says, buttoning up a bright yellow shirt.