Mickey Rourke Says He’s Been In Secret 30-Year Feud With Robert De Niro

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Mickey Rourke has claimed he’s been in a secret 30-year-long feud with Robert De Niro, insisting the actor stopped him from scoring a role in a Martin Scorsese film.

Now, Rourke has hit out at the Goodfellas star because he’s ‘broke’ and angry about missing out on the role. The actor claims the feud began when Rourke ‘schooled’ him when they co-starred in Angel Heart in 1987.

While appearing on an Italian chat show, Rourke said Scorsese approached him about potentially appearing in a film starring Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and De Niro, possibly The Irishman, out later this year.

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As per the Mirror, he said on Live – Non è la D’Urso:

The casting person told my manager that Robert De Niro refused to work with me in a movie.

I am upset because I needed the money.

He went on to say that De Niro told him on the Angel Heart set, ‘I think it’s better if we don’t talk because of our characters in the movie,’ adding, ‘it hurt my feelings as I looked up to him.’

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This comes after Mickey appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, to chat about his latest project, Night Walk.

However, fans on social media were left ‘baffled’ after the actor was unable to answer questions from hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, regarding his upcoming movie.

Confused over which project they wanted to chat about, the actor asked, ‘what film?’

He then briefly went on to chat about the film, in which he plays a Nazi-following white supremacist, explaining:

It was really nice to work with as it was a first time director who wasn’t scared of working with me he was excited.

It was a really good experience, I went out and spoke to some people about white supremacists.

One baffled viewer wrote on Twitter:

I wondered why Mickey Rourke was trending and after catching his toe-curling #GMB interview, now I know.

Another added:

I had to leave the room when Mickey Rourke was being interviewed because it was cringing me out and now he’s trending so I guess it didn’t get much better.

In the film, which is set for release later this year, Rourke’s character is a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a notorious Neo-Nazi prison gang.

Rourke tries to recruit Frank (Sean Stone) into the Brotherhood, after he’s wrongfully imprisoned by corrupt police for the murder of his Arab wife.

Well, it might not be the Scorsese film Rourke hoped to appear in, but it does sound pretty bloody good.

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Emma Rosemurgey

Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.