
From Batman to Top Gun: Val Kilmer's 10 greatest roles, ranked
Although good-looking and hugely charismatic, Kilmer began his career as a comic actor, and it is no surprise that half the roles on this list are in comedies. His great skill was in subverting his heart-throb appearance early in his career, and embracing silly and full-on comic parts later on, after his handsome looks had faded somewhat. Even in his more serious roles, he was able to bring much-needed levity to the part.
Kilmer, unaccountably, never won an Oscar, although at least two of the performances here should have seen him nominated at the bare minimum. After he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015, he largely stepped away from acting – with one notable exception – but his 2021 documentary Val, focusing on his life and career, served as a living epitaph for a superbly talented, if never straightforward, figure. Here are 10 of his greatest performances – ranked.
10. Batman/Bruce Wayne, Batman Forever (1995)
The idea of a fully unhinged Kilmer, in full Jim Morrison or Doc Holliday mode, taking on the dual role of Bruce Wayne and Batman in Joel Schumacher's first, and considerably better, Dark Knight picture is a mouthwatering one. Alas, Kilmer's performance is one of his most restrained, perhaps because of the much-publicised clashes he had with Schumacher on set. Nevertheless, with Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey tiresomely vying with one another to steal scenes, a little dignity and nuance is to be greatly appreciated. Still, perhaps, the most underrated Batman.
9. Himself, Life's Too Short (2013)
For someone castigated for being hard to work with, Kilmer had a remarkable flair for self-deprecation, and this was seldom better demonstrated than in the final episode of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's Warwick Davis-starring sitcom.
Playing a caricatured version of himself – the comic flip side to the Val documentary – Kilmer relishes the chance to satirise not only his Hollywood standing, but also his Method credentials. This is beautifully illustrated by the scene in which he dons his Batman mask (which, for some reason, he has on him at all times), and attempts to surprise Davis's secretary by dint of standing in front of her, blank-faced; she is unable to recognise him, even when he removes his mask.
8. Madmartigan, Willow (1988)
The point of Kilmer's appearance in Life's Too Short is to discuss a sequel to Willow, the George Lucas-produced fantasy epic in which he played the swashbuckling rogue Madmartigan opposite Warwick Davis's adventurer. Ironically, the sequel did, eventually, occur in a 2022 Disney+ series, but Kilmer was no longer well enough to participate in it. His absence left a considerable gap, as his amusing, dashing performance in the original film is one of its most successful elements.
7. Elvis Presley, True Romance (1993)
Tony Scott's Quentin Tarantino's screenplay is a feast of A-list cameos (Walken! Hopper! Oldman! Pitt!), all of them apparently attempting to outdo one another for iconic status. Just as well, then, that Scott, who had previously worked with Kilmer on Top Gun, cast the actor in the recurring role of Christian Slater's imaginary mentor: none other than Elvis Presley. (Although for legal reasons the character is simply credited as 'Mentor'.)
Coming off his legendary performance as Jim Morrison a couple of years before, Kilmer – who is never shown in focus – manages to be funny, charismatic and slightly chilling all at the same time as the ghostly Elvis, and perfectly of a piece with the rest of the superb film.
6. Chris Shiherlis, Heat (1995)
Inevitably, anyone who watches Michael Mann's modern-day crime masterpiece will also be most impressed by its stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, both at their peak, whether individually or in their brief moments together. With this in mind, Kilmer does a superb job as De Niro's volatile right-hand man, whose brilliance at robbing banks is only rivalled by the hot mess of his personal life. Kilmer's final, wordless scene, opposite Ashley Judd as his put-upon wife, shows precisely what this fine actor could do without lengthy monologues to rely on.
5. Nick Rivers, Top Secret! (1984)
Making his cinematic debut, Kilmer stars as the Elvis-esque American singer Nick Rivers in this riotous Second World War comedy action thriller, who is drawn into a knowingly complex web of cross-European espionage. Kilmer appeared at his audition dressed as Elvis, which impressed Abrahams: the writer-director commented that 'I like to think of it as the role Elvis never got but should have.'
Certainly, the King had many skills and qualities, but he never demonstrated anything like Kilmer's brilliance at comic timing, which allows his Rivers to react to even the most outlandish events and clowning with the same hilariously all-American enthusiasm. Kilmer also demonstrates a fantastic singing voice, which would come in very useful later in his career.
4. Perry Van Shrike, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
There may be a better character name in contemporary cinema than 'Gay Perry', but if there is, I am yet to discover it. Shane Black's peerless crime comedy may now be best remembered for being the picture that sent its star Robert Downey Jr on the road to A-list status and superstardom. But as the gruff, laconic and wholly hilarious private detective who has to help Downey Jr's petty criminal, Kilmer matches him every step of the way for the comic goods. Watching the two men banter in Black's inimitable fashion is a true joy (forget about the plot, you're here for the dialogue) and it is a minor tragedy that the film's box office failure did not lead to a reunion of these two inimitable, brilliant characters.
3. Iceman, Top Gun/Top Gun Maverick (1986/2022)
As Tom Cruise's macho rival Iceman in the original Top Gun picture, Kilmer was very fine indeed, but in truth the role was hardly a demanding one; most young, charismatic actors could have played it just as well.
The reason why the part is ranked so highly on the list is because of the scene in the film's vastly superior sequel in which a dying Iceman, who has now been promoted to Admiral and commander of the US Pacific Fleet, meets Cruise's Maverick for the final time. It's wholly affecting, because it acknowledges Kilmer's real-life issues with throat cancer and incorporates them into the character, and it is genuinely difficult to see where the line between fictitious figures and real-life actors is. Cruise, to his great credit, reportedly insisted on the scene being included, and Kilmer's swansong performance in cinema is the greatest moment in a very great film.
2. Doc Holliday, Tombstone (1993)
1993 saw two Wyatt Earp films released, a Lawrence Kasdan-Kevin Costner one, which was expected to be a timeless classic, and a Kurt Russell-Kilmer version from the director of Rambo, which most anticipated would be a mindless B-movie.
In a proper plot twist, Tombstone was not only the more commercially successful of the two, but also vastly better, thanks in large part to Kilmer's brilliant performance as the ailing but deadly gunfighter Doc Holliday. Whether he's exchanging Latin quotations over the card table with a nemesis or dispatching his enemies at the Gunfight at the O.K Corral with a vigour that belies his sickly pallor, Kilmer is magnificent.
1. Jim Morrison, The Doors (1991)
Whether you regard The Doors' lead singer Jim Morrison as a prophet and visionary, or tiresomely self-regarding poseur, there is no denying that Kilmer's performance as Morrison in Oliver Stone's biopic of the band is utterly extraordinary.
Kilmer inhabits Morrison so completely – even down to singing Doors songs in a fashion that might even be better than the original singer – that it's one of the most uncanny impersonations of a famous figure in cinema, a transformative marvel, done without prosthetics or CGI, that should have won him every award going.
That it did not – unbelievably, he wasn't even Oscar-nominated – might say more about the distaste that many more conservative viewers may have felt about the 'Lizard King' than it does about Kilmer's career-best work here.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘It was a buddy movie – and then they kissed': Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi on My Beautiful Laundrette at 40
It is a sweltering summer afternoon and I'm blowing bubbles over the heads of Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi while they have their pictures taken in a sun-dappled corner of the latter's garden. Perched in front of them as they sit side by side – Kureishi, who has been tetraplegic since breaking his neck in a fall in 2022, is in a wheelchair – is a silver cake made to look like a washing machine, commissioned to mark the 40th anniversary of their witty, raunchy comedy-drama My Beautiful Laundrette. Some of the bubbles land on the cake's surface, causing everyone present to make a mental note to skip the icing, while others burst on the brim of Frears's hat or drift into Kureishi's eyes. It is not perhaps the most dignified look for an esteemed duo celebrating an enduring Oscar-nominated gem. Don't think they haven't noticed, either. 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He was kind of a grifter. He took me around these launderettes he owned in the hope that I would run them for him. They were awful fucking places; people were shooting up in there. So I thought I'd write about a bloke running a launderette. Then I thought: 'Well, he needs a friend.' It could be a buddy movie, like The Sting. But I couldn't get a hold on it. Then, as I was writing, they kissed – and suddenly everything seemed more purposeful. Now it was a love story as well as a story about a bloke going into business.' The tension between Omar and Johnny, his formerly racist pal-turned-lover, was drawn from Kureishi's own experience of growing up in south London. 'Lots of my friends had become skinheads. My best friend turned up at my house one day with cropped hair, boots, Ben Sherman shirt, all the gear. My dad nearly had a heart attack. He'd spent a lot of time trying not to be beaten up by skinheads. It was terrifying to be a Pakistani in south London in the 1970s.' Omar's uncle, exuberantly played by Saeed Jaffrey, was similarly lifted from life. 'He was based on a friend of my father's: a good-time boy who had a white mistress.' That lover was played in the film by Shirley Anne Field, star of the kitchen-sink classic Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. 'She was a woman of such grace and elegance,' sighs Kureishi. 'Dan and I would interrogate her all the time: 'Who's the most famous person you've slept with?' She'd slept with President Kennedy. And George Harrison!' He still sounds amazed. When Frears came on board, he made some invaluable suggestions. 'Stephen told me: 'Make it dirty,'' says Kureishi. 'That's a great note. Writing about race had been quite uptight and po-faced. You saw Pakistanis or Indians as a victimised group. And here you had these entrepreneurial, quite violent Godfather-like figures. He also kept telling me to make it like a western.' Frears looks surprised: 'Did I?' Kureishi replies: 'Yeah. I never knew what that meant.' There are visual touches that suggest the genre: a Butch Cassidy-esque bicycle ride, a Searchers-style final camera set-up peering through a doorway, not to mention a magnificent crane shot that hoists us from the back of the launderette and over its roof. 'I think what Stephen meant is that it's about two gangs getting ready to fight. The Pakistani group and the white thugs. There's something coming down the line.' His other note to Kureishi was that the film should have a happy ending. Why? 'We'd asked people to invest so much in these characters,' says Frears. 'And a sad ending is quite easy in an odd sort of way. This one's only happy in the last 10 seconds.' Kureishi agrees: 'Yeah. But you leave the cinema in a cheerful mood.' It was a happy ending for the film-makers, too. Frears recalls one reviewer observing that while Kureishi might not be able to spell, he could certainly write. 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Dan didn't even have a suitcase, just a toothbrush. Every night, he'd wash his underwear and his socks in the sink and put them on again the next day.' Blown up to 35mm, this low-budget TV film became a magnet for rave reviews here and in the US (the New Yorker's Pauline Kael called it 'startlingly fresh'), bagged Kureishi an Oscar nomination and helped reinvigorate Frears's movie career, paving the way for later hits including Dangerous Liaisons, The Grifters and The Queen. Neither of them has seen it recently. 'I don't watch my old films,' Frears says with a grimace. 'You either sit there thinking: 'I should have done that better.' Or else: 'That's rather good. Why can't I do that any more?'' 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'What was above it?' demands Frears in a huff. 'Why didn't it win?' Still, both men are thrilled that the film was embraced by queer audiences. 'If Stephen and I have done anything to make more people gay, we'd be rather proud of that.' My Beautiful Laundrette is in cinemas from 1 August. Frears, Kureishi and Warnecke will take part in a Q&A following a screening on 25 July at the Cinema Rediscovered festival in Bristol


Daily Mirror
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South Wales Guardian
14 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
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