It's Time to Let Go.

Vale Val Kilmer

It’s such an interesting part of the human condition, the sorrow and even loss we feel about the death of a person we never knew personally but we somehow feel that we knew? And when the news broke last night of actor Val Kilmer’s death far too soon at 65, it kinda came out of nowhere, as death so frequently does. And I felt an odd and unexpected sadness.

There has always been something so vulnerable underneath all of his screen performances, whether he’s shooting up a street in Michael Mann’s Heat, his Doc Holliday in Tombstone, even his Batman. And as he battled his many health issues off screen, his return as Iceman became the beating heart of Top Gun: Maverick in a movie nobody expected to cry in, and good grief this scene hits so much harder today..

I adored him in Tombstone (love me a good Western) and was kinda mesmerised by his ethereal performance as Jim Morrison in The Doors.

I reckon the first film I really loved him in, and I know it’s a bit kooky, but the Top Secret! movies always hit my funny bone big time! And this anecdote about his early days making TV commercials? GOLD :)

The film-makers Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams advised him to loosen up and enjoy himself. “The boys always wanted me to have more fun,” recalled Kilmer, “but I wanted to be good and I took it all way too seriously.” It was ever thus. As an adolescent, he had reportedly walked off the set of a hamburger commercial when he found himself unable to manufacture sufficient enthusiasm for the product in hand.

The Guardian: Val Kilmer

The actor certainly had a rep for being “challenging” to work with, even managing to rile his Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher..

Kilmer's reputation for being difficult on set had reportedly exploded into open warfare with the director, Joel Schumacher, normally the most temperate of men, who called his leading man's behaviour "difficult and childish".

John Frankenheimer, who directed Kilmer in The Island of Dr Moreau, was even blunter.

"I don't like Val Kilmer," he said. "I don't like his work ethic and I don't want to be associated with him ever again."

The actor responded: "When certain people criticise me for being demanding, I think that's a cover for something they didn't do well. I think they're trying to protect themselves.

"I believe I'm challenging, not demanding, and I make no apologies for that," he told the Orange County Register newspaper in 2003.

BBC: Val Kilmer: A brilliant, underrated and unpredictable film star

But Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone saw nothing but brilliance in Kilmer..

A number of actors were considered, including John Travolta and Richard Gere, before Stone chose Kilmer because of his physical resemblance to Morrison and strong singing voice.

In his trademark single-minded approach, Kilmer lost weight and learned 50 Doors songs by heart, as well as spending time in a studio perfecting Morrison's stage style.

And in his 1996 biography of Oliver Stone, James Riordan said the surviving Doors could not tell recordings of Kilmer singing their songs from Morrison's original.

So, while I know all you Val fans will be concocting your own Val Kilmer Film Festivals at home this weekend, can I beg you to please add his own story, Val, streaming on Prime Video. Hearing and seeing him, the way he wanted you see him, it’s a pretty special window into the Val offscreen as well as on.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote: "If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Val Kilmer should get it” and I really love that Roger saw this in him.

Vale Val, and farewell for now FilmFam.

KRxx