Thursday, 24 April 2025
Thursday, 24 April 2025
The question of who played Batman the best has never really been answered. Not while Val Kilmer was alive, nor after his death.
The 1959-born Kilmer, one of the handsomest actors from Hollywood in the 80s – he bore an uncanny resemblance with the “Dude” Jeff Bridges – a cancer survivor, died late on Tuesday night. In a statement made to the New York Times, his daughter Mercedes said, he was suffering from pneumonia.
Kilmer was much more than Batman. His performance in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever would not even be counted in amongst his best performances.
Caped crusaders to biopics, westerns to neo-noir thrillers and heist drama, Kilmer could slip in casually and leave an indelible mark.
Diagnosed with throat cancer over a decade ago, that cost Kilmer his voice, his last screen appearance was in Top Gun: Maverick where he reprised the role of Tom “Iceman” Kazinsky, a much-awaited sequel to the 1986 smash hit Top Gun that catapulted Kilmer to stardom.
He had once said, once you’re a star, you’re always a star; it’s just what level?
It is difficult to pin exactly the level at which Kilmer stood in stardom. He had been away from the screen for so long, to ill-health and his desire to pursue other activities including a dab at politics.
His parents had divorced when Val was nine and he was still in his teens when he lost his younger brother in an accident. The sense of loss never quite left him. And probably that is what edged him to the characters that he chose to play on screen.
Playing characters from life
Kilmer had a thing for playing characters from life, be it Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley or the Western legend Doc Halliday.
Kilmer’s co-star in the 2007 thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Robert Downey Jr called him a certified eccentric. He had a falling out with many of his directors including Schumacher and John Frankenheimer, who directed him in The Island of Dr Moreau, alongside Marlon Brando. Both Schumacher and Franknheimer expressed their desire never to work with him again, despite admiring his talent.
Brando himself one of the most eccentric stars and amongst the brightest did not take a shine to his younger co-star. Brando is reported to have told Kilmer, “You are confusing your talent with the size of your paycheck.”
The duration of the role did not appear to have bothered Kilmer, nor did billing. He was happy being billed beneath Michael Douglas or squeezing himself somewhere on the screen between two powerhouse performers like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Michael Mann’s Heat or as Doc Halliday in Tombstone alongside Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton.
He wanted to work with Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Kilmer kept footage of his screen tests for the films The Goodfellas and Full Metal Jacket, as he did for Oliver Stone’s The Doors, where he played Jim Morrison. Some of the footage made it to the 2021 documentary “Val” which was made by his children.
