Mickey Rourke Deems Tom Cruise ‘Irrelevant’ Despite ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Success: ‘That Doesn’t Mean Sh*t’
Tom Cruise’s career doesn’t impress Mickey Rourke.
Rourke weighed in on fellow ’80s breakout star Cruise’s A-lister status during a recent interview on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” When host Morgan asked Rourke what it’s like to see Cruise back at the top of the box office charts with summer blockbuster sequel “Top Gun: Maverick,” Rourke jabbed, “That doesn’t mean shit to me.”
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“The guy’s been doing the same f-ing part for 35 years,” Rourke added (via Metro UK). “I got no respect for that.”
Cruise reprises his role of Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the follow-up to 1986’s hit film.
Morgan asked, “You don’t think Tom Cruise is a good actor?,” to which Rourke responded, “I think he’s irrelevant, in my world.”
Rourke continued, “I don’t care about money and power. I care about when I watch Al Pacino work and Chris Walken and [Robert] De Niro’s early work and Richard Harris’ work and Ray Winstone’s work. That’s the kind of actor I want to be like. Monty Clift and [Marlon] Brando back in the day.”
Rourke currently has 11 features in the works, including Roman Polanski’s rumored next project “Palace.” Despite name-dropping Robert De Niro as an acting icon, Rourke publicly feuded with the “Taxi Driver” actor for more than 30 years, most recently calling him a “big fucking crybaby” in a since-deleted 2020 Instagram post.
“Hey Robert De Niro, that’s right I am talking to you, you big f***ing crybaby,” Rourke wrote of his former “Angel Heart” co-star. “A friend of mine just recently told me that a few months back you’re quoted as saying to newspapers ‘Mickey Rourke’s a liar he talks all kind of shit.’ Listen Mr Tough Guy in the movies, you’re the 1st person that ever called me a liar and it was in a newspaper. Let me tell you something, you punk ass, when I see you I swear to God on my Grandmother, on my brother and all my dogs, I gonna embarrass you severely 100%. Mickey Rourke ‘as God is my witness.'”
Rourke also weighed in on the Marvel debate, writing that original “Law and Order: SVU” stars Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni represent “real acting” unlike “that crap, that all on Marvel shit.”
The “Iron Man 2” alum previously slammed the MCU amid claims that the studio edited out his performance. “I explained to [director Jon] Favreau that I wanted to bring some other layers and colors, not just make this Russian a complete murderous revenging bad guy,” Rourke said at the time. “And they allowed me to do that. Unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up [on] the floor.”
Rourke concluded, “At the end of the day, you’ve got some nerd with a pocketful of money calling the shots. You know, Favreau didn’t call the shots. I wish he would have.”
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