By Anne Brodie
David Arquette loves wrestling, has all his life. He’d had no training when he entered a professional competition to promote the 2000 film Ready to Rumble. And he won the WCW Heavyweight Champion title. His win raised the ire of wrestling fans because he was an actor, not a wrestler, a fake. He took it to heart, did the work, and went at like his reputation was on the line. There was fallout in Hollywood, where he says he was no longer taken seriously because he was wrestling, He didn’t get a role for ten years, but not to worry, he’s a prolific producer and is doing well, he’s comfortable. His edgy documentary You Cannot Kill David Arquette follows his attempts to regain his cred, despite his age, a heart attack, drug and alcohol addictions, and serious mental health issues. I spoke with Arquette from his home in Los Angeles.
Wrestling, according to your doc is an extreme corner of show business. It takes a certain personality and training; you didn’t have the training, but you had the will.
I did train for a long time, but at first, no I didn’t have any training. I’ve moved past that now. It feels good to stand up to for myself and to prove to myself that I could do it. It was important to me, I did it for myself. I didn’t like the fact that people had the wrong impression of me, saying I wasn’t tough enough. I wanted to properly go into wrestling and do it the right way.
It was reckless to go into the ring given your mental and physical health issues. You sustained a lot of injuries, you could have died, or relapsed.
It is tough, a complicated world of wrestling. You can get injured and then need painkillers, I didn’t want to take them too long, and then there is the drinking, it’s a bad road. I took so many risks. I learned a lot from them, I had to believe in myself and be kind to myself. That was a really important lesson. I’ve been beating myself up for so long.
Is the film your redemption?
I feel like it is. I wanted to do a film that was a love letter to wrestling. I’ve loved it my whole life and it’s important to me not to put a negative aspect on it. I wanted to honour it, and the incredible Canadian wrestler RJ City (from Richmond Hill). That was some of my favourite stuff. We show a match, but we went on tour in Canada a couple of times. I would have included it in the documentary, but it wasn’t the story the producers wanted to tell. They were great times.
You are incredibly open about your struggles. Were you surprised you shared so much?
I’m an open book anyway. But that has its downsides as well, but I learned I don’t know, I knew that in good documentaries, the subject has to be vulnerable and honest and open and on the line. I didn’t want to hold back. It’s a world where anything fake sticks out in a bad way. Everything has to be real and honest, always.