In the flick, Tomei
played Pam, a faded stripper who befriends Mickey Rourke’s
character Randy “The Ram” Robinson. The part required Marisa to perform
nude dance routines.
“I hung out with a bunch of girls [in Los Angeles]. What did I learn? You know what I learned? It’s all true,” she said. “Guys are pretty simple at the end of the day. And I also thought that that character really mirrored [Mickey's character].
“What I learned from [the strippers] was that what Mickey’s character was going through in terms of his body being his job and starting to fail him and some of the things he had to do physically taking its toll — honestly, just those heels alone cause a lot of backaches for a lot of those girls, and we didn’t really get into that, but the stuff that Mickey’s character is going, it’s the same that [my character's] going through, too — putting her body on the line every day.”
“I had already done Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead so that kind of broke me in,” Tomei said of filming her nude scenes. “It broke the ice. And that was with Sidney Lumet directing. And he was very paternal and protective, and I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing even to do, career-wise.
“Like, is this cool for me to be doing right now at this stage? But I really, really wanted to work with Lumet and Phil Hoffman and Ethan Hawke, and so I took the chance and then it was fine. And so after I had done that, it was kind of like, ‘Oh. Again? Next year? Really?’ “
“I hung out with a bunch of girls [in Los Angeles]. What did I learn? You know what I learned? It’s all true,” she said. “Guys are pretty simple at the end of the day. And I also thought that that character really mirrored [Mickey's character].
“What I learned from [the strippers] was that what Mickey’s character was going through in terms of his body being his job and starting to fail him and some of the things he had to do physically taking its toll — honestly, just those heels alone cause a lot of backaches for a lot of those girls, and we didn’t really get into that, but the stuff that Mickey’s character is going, it’s the same that [my character's] going through, too — putting her body on the line every day.”
“I had already done Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead so that kind of broke me in,” Tomei said of filming her nude scenes. “It broke the ice. And that was with Sidney Lumet directing. And he was very paternal and protective, and I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing even to do, career-wise.
“Like, is this cool for me to be doing right now at this stage? But I really, really wanted to work with Lumet and Phil Hoffman and Ethan Hawke, and so I took the chance and then it was fine. And so after I had done that, it was kind of like, ‘Oh. Again? Next year? Really?’ “
