Mickey Rourke bashes Sean Penn as a “homophobe” and an “average” actor?

Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke may be frontrunners for an academy award as best actor, as both are likely to get nominated for Oscars this year for Milk and The Wrestler respectively. Apparently, Mickey though was not all that impressed by his friend and potential rival’s performance if you believe a new report.

The Daily Beast got a hold of a text message supposedly sent by Rourke to some industry-type calling Sean Penn a gay hater. It read:

“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 (sic).”

Rourke acknowledged to be brutally honest,even to his own detriment also told someone backstage of the David Letterman show,that he was surprised that so many people seemed to think that Penn was his Oscar competition since “I’m not even sure he’ll get a nomination.”

It seems though if Sean is a homophobe and he can play a gay man convincingly that’s an Oscar worthy performance? Perhaps more of a stretch then Rourke playing a beat-up aging professional wrestler?  Anyway Penn is such a bleeding liberal it would be hard to imagine him being also a closet homophobe. Besides Rourke has been known to throw around the “faggot” word once or twice himself.  Truly though they were both magnificent in their performances so it’s a shame if there is some back biting going on.

Mickey’s spokesperson said she knows nothing of the text, but went on to say that Mickey and Sean are best friends and there is no fued. Mickey even showed up to the NYC premiere of Milk to support Sean she gave as evidence of their friendship.