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Piper At The Gates Of "Philadelphia"

Posted: Oct 30th 2009 By: CMBurnham

?Rowdy? Roddy Piper has won more than 7,000 wrestling matches in his career and his acting resume is filled with numerous roles, including the lead in John Carpenter?s ?They Live.?

But to land his role as a wrestler named Da Maniac on the ?It?s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? episode ?The Gang Wrestles for the Troops,? airing today at 10 p.m. on FX, the 55-year-old grappler had to do something he hadn?t done in 20 years. He had to audition.

?I hate auditioning,? Piper said. ?But as I?m spreading my acting wings here, sometimes you?ve got to take the bull by the horn. There were a lot of people who wanted this part, so I?m proud to
have gotten it.?

The role was a takeoff of ?The Wrestler,? with Piper in Mickey Rourke?s part, which he said he knows implicitly.

?For goodness sakes, I am the wrestler,? Piper said. ?I really understood where the guy was coming from.?

But don?t expect a serious performance on the show, where the cast, in their wrestling personas ? ?The Birds of War,? replete with feathers, beaks and fake six-pack abs ? gets into the ring.

?The cast was pretty funny,? Piper said. ?They got right into it like they were kids again.?

Tags: Roddy Piper