Mickey Rourke was interviewed on Fox Nation’s Piers Morgan Uncensored this week, if anyone was wondering exactly how long it would take before this story would go off the rails. The reason for Rourke’s appearance is immediately unclear, however, the 69-year-old had some choice words for generally beloved A-list actor Tom Cruise, which ended up going viral and sparking some not super flattering comparisons.
Though Rourke has been acting for over four decades and has worked with directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and Darren Aronofsky, his career of late seems to be relegated mostly to B action movies, and he doesn’t seem like the most suitable peer to comment on another actor’s career. But comment he did!
“I don’t care about money and power,” Rourke told Morgan. “I care about when I watch Al Pacino working, Chris Walken, De Niro’s early work, Richard Harris’ work, Ray Winstone’s work — that’s the kind of actor I want to be, like Monty Clift, Brando back in the day. A lot of guys that just tried to stretch as actors.”
“You don’t think he’s [Cruise] a good actor?” Morgan asked. “I think he’s irrelevant, in my world,” Rourke responded.
Sure, maybe he has something close to a valid a point in there — Tom Cruise is less of an actor and more of an action star these days — but irrelevant? Hardly. If nothing else, those billion Top Gun dollars suggest otherwise.
Rourke’s comments soon began circulating on Twitter after former Republican pundit Ron Filipkowski tweeted out a clip of the video.
However, the substance of those remarks quickly became overshadowed by his unusual appearance. Rourke famously underwent reconstructive surgery in the aughts to fix his injuries from boxing, though it appears as though he may have overcorrected. And while it may be unkind to make fun of someone over their looks, the 9½ Weeks star wasn’t not asking for it by criticizing Cruise’s career.
As such, people on Twitter compared Rourke to everyone from “a Keith Urban cake on Nailed It” and “Kato Kaelin out of Play-Doh” to Marjorie Taylor Greene and so on.
Another user compared Rourke’s appearance to Bruce Campbell’s character of the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills in Escape from L.A.
Some compared Rourke’s face to Van Kilmer, while others jumped in to suggest that we leave Kilmer out of this.
Hopefully, Val Kilmer has better things to do than check why his name is trending on Twitter. We feel pretty confident that Tom Cruise has no idea what’s going on, anyway.