Actor Mickey Rourke began trending on Twitter Saturday when, in a pair of interviews for both Newsmax and Fox News Digital, he was an unusual choice to weigh in on the fraught situation in Ukraine.
Rourke on Friday appeared on Newsmax to speak with “America Right Now” host Tom Basile, and he explained why he thinks faith in a higher power will be the only thing that will end Russia’s aggression of Ukraine.
“I don’t really believe this thing can be settled diplomatically myself. Putin is very — he wants what he wants. Ukraine is fighting harder than anyone expected them to fight,” Rourke said. “The Ukrainians are putting up such a hard fight. I don’t care if there’s two of them left, they’re going to fight ’til they’re dead. I was thinking about it a lot, and what came to me is the only thing that is going to stop this madness, when it’s the right time, it will be stopped from above, not from down here.”
Rourke also did a text interview with Fox News Digital, calling the war a “nightmare kind of scenario,” but also revealing that he once got the chance to meet with Putin. Rourke in 2014 was photographed wearing a t-shirt with the Russian president’s face on it and several years later described his experience being in Russia and meeting Putin.
“He took us to a very famous museum in St. Petersburg. And then later he took me to a children’s cancer hospital. And we went in there and visited the really, really sick, little, tiny, tiny kids,” Rourke told Fox News Digital. “I looked over at him and I saw him and, nobody’s going to want to hear this, but I saw a man with empathy and who was really moved by what these children are going through.”
Rourke also clarified that there’s an issue for Russian people who are dealing with misinformation from the state run media and that it would be wrong to vilify all Russians.
“You can’t hate every f—ing Russian cause most of them don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “That was different than the rest of the world sees, but I also see what’s going on now. So to me, it’s like a nightmare kind of scenario.”
Rourke appeared on both Newsmax and Fox News Digital to promote a new movie called “Man of God,” which opens through Fathom Events in limited release on March 21 and 28. The film is about the life of Saint Nektarios of Aegina, which a synopsis describes as someone who was “exiled unjustly, convicted without trial, slandered without cause” and how he “bears the unjust hatred of his enemies while preaching the Word of God.”
Check out Mickey Rourke’s full interview with Newsmax here.