God bless the Hollywood bust-up. In an era when the edges seem to have been thoroughly sanded off every celebrity interaction, when “heartwarming moment” tweets and co-star bromance compilation videos go viral at the drop of a hat, there’s something refreshing about some good old-fashioned thespianic mud-slinging. There are exceptions, of course: performers who refuse to submit their offscreen personas to the stern marshalling of bubblewrap-gloved PR specialists. Every so often, you get someone like Sam Elliott calling the Best Picture frontrunner a “piece of s***”. Or Brian Cox branding Johnny Depp “overblown” and “overrated”.
The latest practitioner of this dying artform is none other than Mickey Rourke. During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored this week, the Wrestler star delivered a withering assessment of Tom Cruise, whose latest legacyquel Top Gun: Maverick has recently become the year’s highest-grossing film, and the biggest hit of Cruise’s illustrious career. “That doesn’t mean s*** to me,” Rourke grumbled. “The guy’s been doing the same effing part for 35 years. I got no respect for that.” Rourke then contrasted him with the sort of actors he actually rates – Al Pacino; Christopher Walken; Richard Harris; Ray Winstone; early Robert De Niro. “I think [Tom Cruise is] irrelevant, in my world,” he added.
