Rave reviews for Val Kilmer film
He may be unable to speak because of illness but actor Val Kilmer is telling the world who he is in a highly acclaimed documentary
HE’S played a caped crusader, a gun-slinging lawman, a rock star and a fighter pilot – but in his latest bigscreen outing he just gets to be himself. And the documentary chronicling the life of one of Hollywood’s most complex characters turned out to be one of the talking points of the world’s most glamorous film festivals. Val tells of the highs and lows of Val Kilmer, a man whose extraordinary skill has always been undercut by a notoriously difficult personality.
But this doccie, which is directed by Leo Scott and Ting Poo and debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, is more than other people making a movie about a famous person.
Because long before camera phones and social media were a thing, Val (61) was filming himself, his brothers and their friends on an old-fashioned video camera, recording it all for prosperity.
To make the film, Leo and Ting sifted through 40 hours of home footage to capture what Variety calls Val’s “talent, intelligence and gift for self-sabotage”.
“He was into the whole obsession with self-recording ahead of everyone else,” the magazine says. “He kept a video camera running at home, on movie sets, wherever he was. What makes Val a good and heartfelt movie, rather than just some glorified movie-star-as-trashedparody-of-himself piece of reality-show exploitation, is that he brings to the film an incredible sense of self-awareness.” Val is both surprised and not surprised by the success of the documentary. “I always felt the stories behind the stories we were telling would make a great film,” he says. “I didn’t know that I was going to be an actor that people would make documentaries about but I knew I was an actor.”
The film is a warts-and-all look at Val’s
life. It delves into his career as a superstar in blockbusters such as Top Gun and Batman, his tour de force as Jim Morrison in The Doors and his turn as the TB-stricken Doc Holliday in Tombstone.
But it also looks at the troubled side of his life: the painful demise of his marriage to English actress Joanne Whalley, how difficult he was to work with and the throat cancer that ravaged his voice.
Val also opens up in the film about losing his younger brother, Wesley, who died in a hot tub during an epileptic seizure when he was 17.
“Illness has robbed Val of his voice,” Tim Robey says in The Telegraph, “but this moving documentary, compiled by decades-old home videos, gives it back.”
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AL, who’s unable to speak in more than a rasp, uses a voice box for the documentary and his son, Jack (26), shares his father’s words and thoughts in voice-overs. “It’s the film’s most affecting device,” the Hollywood Reporter says, “as Jack’s voice contains an unmistakable echo of his dad’s.”
Val’s daughter, Mercedes (29), is also featured in the doccie and poignant scenes of what critics call “affectionate silliness” between Val and his children illustrate how close they are.
Val married Joanne, the mother of his kids, in 1988 after they met on the set of the fantasy movie Willow. They divorced in 1996 after Joanne accused him of choosing his career over his family.
When he left for Europe to promote Batman Forever, she claimed he left her and the kids “homeless”.
“My children shouldn’t have to live in borrowed homes or hotels,” she said at the time. She also claimed Val refused to give her money to buy a house.
Although their split was acrimonious, the bitterness didn’t rub off on the kids and they adore their dad. Val and Mercedes even play father and daughter in the 2020 action thriller Paydirt.
“I’m learning from my daughter about everything – life itself,” he told People.
His battle with cancer brought him and the children even closer. “Dad’s health challenges have been just that – challenging – but so many good things have come out of it,” Mercedes says.
“My dad is such a smart and creative person who I love hanging out with, and I would even if he wasn’t my dad. He’s a good friend of mine.”
In Paydirt, Val’s first movie since 2017’s The Snowman, he plays a sheriff who has a speech disability, like the actor himself.
“It’s pretty historic to have a lead with a speech disability,” Mercedes says. “I hope that it heralds more doors opening like that in the future.”
For the movie, Val’s voice was dubbed by actor Jesse Corti, whose voice has also been featured in animated Disney hits such as Beauty and the Beast and Frozen.
“My dad was able to artfully circumvent the limitations of his speech so I learnt so much watching him, how he communicated physically. It taught me so much about acting – it expanded what I thought acting was which was central to speech.”
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AL returns to the big screen – and to one of his bestknown roles – in Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the 1986 smash hit. He’ll once again play Tom “Iceman” Kazansky, the cool rival to Tom Cruise’s cocky fighter pilot, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Top Gun was Val’s third movie part, after Top Secret! (1984) and Real Genius (1985), and he initially wanted no part of it.
“I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me. My agent, who also represented Tom Cruise, basically tortured me into at least meeting [director] Tony Scott,” he recalls in his memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry.
Val went as far as trying to self-sabotage the audition by “looking like a fool or the goon. I read the lines indifferently and yet, amazingly, I was told I had the part. I felt more deflated than inflated”. Decades later, he admitted he was desperate to be in the sequel, which originally didn’t feature Iceman.
“I’d not only contacted the producers but created heartrending scenes with Iceman. The producers went for it. Tom Cruise went for it.”
He’s sworn to secrecy about his role in the sequel, which is due in cinemas in November. It’s why it’s not even clear whether he’ll have a dubbed voice.
“All I can tell you about the film,” he said on Good Morning America, “is that my hair isn’t the same length.”
Working with Tom Cruise again was great, he said. “Tom and I picked up just where we left off.”
He has no regrets, but if there was one thing he could tell his younger self, he says, it’s this: “Slow down, my friend. Waste more time. Pray more.”
S Val is streaming on Amazon Prime Video from 6 August.
‘IT’S PRETTY HISTORIC TO HAVE A LEAD WITH A SPEECH DISABILITY’