Rourke will be playing real-life brute Richard “Iceman” Kuklinski, a sometimes mafia hit man who claimed to have killed 250 people (claiming his first victim at the age of 13) before being apprehended and incarcerated in 1988. Sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences, Kuklinski was ineligible for
parole until he turned 110. We’ll never know if he could’ve lasted that long as he (SPOILER ALERT) died of natural causes in 2006, conveniently right before he was to testify against Sammy “The Bull” Gravano.
Kuklinski should be familiar to many people for his creepily casual interviews in two different HBO specials about his rascally life as a super-murderer (one airing in 1991, the other in 2001). The real Kuklinski was a giant monster, not just in the moral sense. He stood at 6’5 and weighed some 300 lbs. I mean, just look at this picture of him and author Carlo…
Thanks to Brian for the tip.