by James Caldwell, Assistant editor

Darren Aronofsky, the director of "The Wrestler," made himself very well-known this past Sunday when he shot a middle finger to Mickey Rourke during Rourke's acceptance speech for Best Actor at the Golden Globes awards shows on NBC.

It could have been taken as a sign of disrespect, but based on their tight-knit relationship after filming and promoting the movie, the gesture should be considered merely part of the back-and-forth between the lead actor and the director who pushed and pushed Rourke every day of filming.

"It had been a long time since I gave all of myself to a project," Rourke told MTV's Kurt Loder inside MTV Studios during a recent interview.

While Rourke went into relaxed mode for the interview, Aronofsky eagerly talked about the strict filming requirements to get the movie done within the miniscule budget.

Aronofsky described the "Borat" style of filmmaking for the wrestling scenes, where they used one camera and had to rehearse the match action ahead of time to get the key scenes done in one or two takes.

One of the key scenes in the movie came outside of the ring, though, when Rourke was shown working at a local deli. Aronofsky talks about not having the money to close down the market or meat counter, so there was plenty of improvisation with real people.

"A woman asking for friend chicken was a real woman asking for fried chicken," Aronofsky said. He says filming the scene made for a tough personal day for Rourke, however.

"The shame of having to be doing something that you feel is degrading," Rourke explained. "I begged Darren can't he (Randy "the Ram" Robinson) just be a dishwasher where he doesn't have to relate to the people?"

Aronofsky says one of the keys to the scenes is Rourke's character cracking jokes to relieve tension on the outside, but the pain is still evident beneath the surface.

"You can see underneath all the jokes he's making that he's hurting," Aronofsky said.

Link: Aronofsky and Rourke MTV interview.

Video Selection below: Video of the four-part mini-interview with Aronofsky and Rourke at MTV News studios.

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