Mickey Rourke, who readers may remember for playing Whiplash in the film Iron Man 2 back in 2010, has called Hollywood A-Lister Tom Cruise “irrelevant”.
The eye-brow-raising comment came about when Rourke was interviewed by Piers Morgan and the actor was asked what he thought about Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick latest movie topping the box office charts.
“That doesn’t mean shit to me,” Rourke replied, before adding: “The guy’s been doing the same effing part for 35 years.”
He continued, “I got no respect for that. I don’t care about money and power. I care about when I watch Al Pacino work and Chris Walken and De Niro’s early work and Richard Harris’s work and Ray Winstone’s work. That’s the kind of actor I want to be like. Monty Clift and Brando back in the day.”
Piers stood up for Cruise, telling the Iron Man 2 actor that he thinks Cruise is “a good actor”, but Rourke didn’t back down. “I think he’s irrelevant, in my world,” he replied.
Along with his part in Iron Man 2, Rourke also played roles in The Rainmaker and Sin City.
Grossing over US $1 billion in global box office receipts, Top Gun: Maverick is officially the most successful film of 2022 so far, and the most successful of Tom Cruise’s career.
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The popularity of the latest sequel in the iconic Top Gun franchise has created whispers about another potential Top Gun movie, and one of the film’s stars Glen Powell, hinted that it may happen.
“Well, I actually sat down with Joe, Jerry and Tom, and there’s no doubt that everybody would want to put the flight suit back on and return to this. I think it’s a question of, “Can we beat it? Is there a story to tell? Are there ways to push the limits in the same way that we did in this one and give meaning to returning to that world?” So I know that everybody’s minds are on it, and we definitely have the best minds in the world trying to figure it out,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
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