Rourke had 'Iron Man' language struggles'

Mickey Rourke has revealed that it took him three weeks to learn two lines in Russian for his role in Iron Man 2.

The Wrestler star said getting to grips with the language for his part as technology expert Ivan Vanko was extremely challenging.

Rourke, who stars alongside Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow in the action hero thriller, said: "The language is very hard to wrap an English tongue around.

"I had a Russian teacher for three months, five days a week for around three hours a day. To learn two lines would take three weeks."

Rourke met his Russian model girlfriend Elena Kuletskaya while working on the film and said it didn't help that she endlessly mocked his accent.