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Mickey Rourke deserved an Oscar for The Wrestler, if only so that we could have witnessed a repeat of his acceptance speech from the 2009 Film Independent's Spirit Awards.

“It's nice to be presented this award by these two talented...[Rourke notices that a female stage chaperone has appeared onstage next to Laura Dern and Philip Seymour Hoffman] ...three. I don't know what you do, honey, but these two are really good. Uh, and you know, I've just gotten thousands of letters and shit from strangers who know about my dog that died six days ago. Loki, this is for you, baby. And I just got done talking to the Santa Monica Police Department. They gave me a bed to sleep in ten years ago; I asked them for two pillows. They told me to f*** off but I thank them anyway.

“Thank you, [Wrestler director] Darren Aronofsky for believing in me...The only thing I want to say to any young actor that gets an opportunity to work with Darren is you better be in shape because he will break you down. He is one tough sonofabitch and he don't like it when I say that because he goes: ‘Mickey, you'll scare all the other actors away from me.' But do you know what, Darren? If they ain't got the balls, then f*** 'em.

“Y'know, anyway I wanna thank Fox Searchlight and Peter Rice and all the girls, Melissa - I don't know all their names - Ann, Maria...the little one I call Gap Tooth, I know you're here and, uh, I want to thank, uh, my memory ain't that good...Oh, Jesus, I wanna thank...who else? Melissa? [Wrestler lead actress] Marisa Tomei! Goddamn it, she had to do all this bare-assed and she brought it. She's a very... is she here? OK, anyway, not many girls can climb the pole - you know what I'm saying? And she climbed the pole and she did it well and I give her big props for that, it was a very courageous performance. We had to pry her out of the trailer but that was all right.

“I also wanna thank the wrestling community who have been incredibly supportive, the WWE [chairman]Vince McMahon, who supported us because we exposed some issues in this film that are very controversial - like the steroids, the cocaine, and banging that girl in the bathroom - but shit like that does happen. These guys are on the road a lot and they get lonely.

Uh, gee whizz, what else have I got to say? Oh, the hardest working gall in show business, my... Uh, she was my publicist and she had her hands full. And as I said in the Bafta awards, she told me where to go, what to do, want not to do, how to dress, who to f***, not to, y'know.

“But anyway, Paula, I love you, you can go back to the farm tomorrow. And JP my manager, manager of chaos, God bless you. Peter Rice, your boss Jim Jiminopolis, something like that anyway, thanks for the money.

“Thank you all very much.”

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