Well, the race for the Oscar Best Actor just went up a notch with a dirty tactics article over at The Daily Beast quoting an alleged private text message sent from Mickey Rourke to an unnamed “Los Angeles entertainment honcho.” The alleged text from Gerald Posner’s report reads as such:
Look seans an old friend of mine and i didnt buy his performance at all-thought he did an average pretend acting like he was gay besides hes one of the most homophobic people i kno
This is coupled with a second hand report following Rourke’s appearance on “Late Night With David Letterman” in which he supposedly said to someone backstage, “I’m not even sure he’ll get a nomination.”
Posner got a quote from Rourke’s publicist saying he is “completely unaware of the text” and the article then goes on to quote people accepting the text as fact and mentioning how truthful Rourke is, even to his own detriment. Posner himself seems convinced of the text’s legitimacy with a final paragraph saying:
Rourke’s bashing of Penn takes it beyond the studio level and makes it much more personal, especially since the two are friends. It is the first time anyone can recall an actor dishing another actor so openly for the performance.
I love how Posner refers to Rourke’s supposed “bashing” as being done “openly.” What a joke! None of it would have been made public had he not reported it. Of course, this is what has happened in our world where gossip has taken over and the truth is no longer important. Even if Mickey Rourke didn’t like Sean Penn’s performance in Milk what would that change about Rourke’s performance in The Wrestler? Would that lessen his performance in some way?
I guess you could call me just as much of a problem as Posner in this case since I am regurgitating his article and continuing the spread of potential misinformation, but there isn’t any other way to comment on it in this case, however hypocritical it may make me look.
