Mickey Rourke says Robert De Niro stopped him from getting role in The Irishman

Mickey Rourke has clamed that Robert De Niro stopped him from getting a role in new Scorsese film The Irishman.

The actor said they first fell out on the set of Alan Parker’s 1987 thriller Angel Heart, and have been feuding ever since.

“Marty Scorsese wanted to meet me for a movie with Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro,” Rourke told Italian TV show Live – Non è la D’Urso, referencing the new Netflix gangster film. “The casting person told my manager that Robert De Niro said he refused to work with me in a movie.”

Rourke added that he’s “upset” because he “needed the money”.

According to the Wrestler star, he “looked up” to De Niro like Marlon Brando and Al Pacino back in the 1980s, but changed his view after De Niro allegedly told him on the Angel Heart set: “I think it’s better if we don’t talk.”

“Now I don’t look up to him no more; I look through him,” Rourke said. “I came up from the s**t. He doesn’t know that life. I lived that f**king life, so every time I look him in the face I look right through his a**hole.”

De Niro's reps have been contacted for comment.

Based on Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses, The Irishman marks the ninth collaboration between De Niro and Scorsese.

In it, De Niro plays former hitman Frank Sheeran as both an 80-year-old and a 24-year old – and it was this task that caused the film to become the most expensive Scorsese has ever worked on.

The film’s limited theatrical run will start on 1 November before its Netflix premiere on 27 November.