Rourke has had a lot to choose from with De Niro since he co-starred in 1987’s “Angel Heart”, and last fall he said that De Niro kept him from starring in “The Irishman.”
STEPHANE FEUGERE
Mickey Rourke and Robert De Niro are two guys you wouldn’t want to leave alone in a room together. Especially as evidenced by the recent Instagram post by Mickey Rourke, who attacks De Niro on the grounds that he called Rourke a “liar” in the newspapers. Rourke made the headlines last fall when he said that De Niro, with whom he starred in Alan Parker’s neo-noir “Angel Heart” in 1987, prevented him from co-starring in “The Irishman” by Martin Scorsese. See the Instagram post, originally posted on Friday, below.
“Hello Robert De Niro, it’s true, I’m talking to you, you damn crybaby,” wrote Rourke. “Recently, a friend of mine told me that a few months ago you were quoted saying to the newspapers ‘Mickey Rourke is a liar who talks all kinds of things.’ Listen Mr. Tough Guy in the cinema, you are the first person to call me a liar and it was in a newspaper. Let me tell you something, idiot, when I see you, I swear to God on my grandmother, on my brother and all my dogs, I’m going to [sic] embarrass him 100%. Mickey Rourke, since God is my witness.
Later in the post, Rourke said in the comments, “I’m going to b [sic] moving to New York on nex [sic] a few months this encounter will surely happen [sic]. “
The reason for the latest letter is unclear. In September 2019, Rourke told the Italian television show “Live – Non è la D’Urso” that he could have been considered for “The Irishman” if De Niro had not rejected a collaboration. “Marty Scorsese wanted to meet me for a movie with Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro,” said Rourke, referring to the gangster epic that premiered on Netflix. “The cast person told my manager that Robert De Niro said he refused to work with me on a movie.”
“The Irishman” producers Jane Rosenthal and Emma Tillinger Koskoff, along with casting director Ellen Lewis, later said Rourke was never in talks for a role in a Best Picture nominee.
“I don’t admire [De Niro] no more; I look through it, ”said Rourke in the 2019 interview. Rourke has a handful of post-production and pre-production genre projects, including” WarHunt, “a WWII horror film that ended filming in Latvia during the April pandemic.
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