Mickey Rourke has branded Tom Cruise “irrelevant” in a new interview, claiming the blockbuster star has “been doing the same effing part for 35 years”.
Speaking to Piers Morgan on Talk TV, Rourke launched a scathing criticism of Cruise when asked about the box office success of Top Gun: Maverick.
“That doesn’t mean shit to me,” said Rourke. “The guy’s been doing the same effing part for 35 years. I got no respect for that.”
He continued: “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.”
Morgan then asked if he thought Cruise was a good actor, to which Mickey Rourke replied: “I think he’s irrelevant, in my world.”
Mickey Rourke says Tom Cruise isn’t a very good actor because he doesn’t take roles that challenge him: “I think he’s irrelevant.” pic.twitter.com/30r7b3Jxz2
— Ron Filipkowski
(@RonFilipkowski) July 11, 2022
Cruise’s latest film, Top Gun: Maverick, currently sits as the highest grossing title of 2022, surpassing $1billion (£813million) at the global box office.
The new sequel, which follows on from the 1986 original, has now overtaken Marvel‘s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness as the biggest film of the year. It’s also Cruise’s first movie to surpass the billion mark.
Maverick began breaking records upon its release last month, achieving the highest-grossing opening on its debut weekend for a non-superhero film since COVID-19, taking in $248million (£196million).
In NME‘s three-star review of Maverick, we wrote: “Top Gun: Maverick does exactly what its intended audience wants it to do – pile on the airborne thrills and steely military heroics without knotting things up with too much moralising or complex character development.
“Its plot may just be an extended Rocky-style training film for the jet fighter equivalent of the bombing of the Death Star, but throwbacks to the original movie supply the emotional heart.”
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