But two years later, in 1987, she would be randomly coincidentally serendipitously cast opposite him in “Willow,” and they would end up married. This was crazy even for him, so he made no move. He was so taken with her that he followed her to the pub after-party just so he could look at her. Another story: In the days before he set eyes for the first time on his (now ex-) wife, Joanne Whalley, he dreamed that he met the woman he was destined for and woke up and immediately wrote a poem called, “We’ve Just Met but Marry Me Please.” Then right after that, he went to London, and while he was there, he saw a play, and Whalley was in it. He was traveling in Africa in 1994 when he decided to spend a morning exploring a bat cave later that day, literally seriously that day, he was inspired to call his agent, who had been trying to contact Kilmer for weeks to see if he was interested in playing the role of Batman, now that Michael Keaton was hanging it up. See how it all turned out for the best?Īll Val Kilmer’s stories are like that, told with that same dash of preordained kismet. Now look at him, still using his most beloved instrument when really, by all rights, it should be useless. He says the fact that I can understand him is a result of the endless vocal exercises that he was trained to do when he went to Juilliard after high school, that he was taught to work his voice “like it was a trumpet.” He hated the authoritarian rule at Juilliard while he was there he hated those stupid vocal exercises. The sound is something between a squeak and a voiceless roar. He can still squeeze air up through his windpipe, however, and past the hole that was cut into his throat and the tracheostomy tube, in a way that makes him somewhat understood - not very, but somewhat.

It’s hard to believe now, as I write this, but just two months ago, when we were allowed to roam free, when we could board planes and alight from them and wander into rental cars and check into hotels - when we could chase down and replenish the beauty and wonder our very cells need to survive - I went to Los Angeles, where I was asked this question by Val Kilmer: “Do you think South by Southwest will be canceled?” But Val Kilmer no longer sounds like Val Kilmer, the movie star of the ‘80s and ‘90s who has mostly vanished from screens. So here’s my story, “The Iceman in Winter,” read for you by Julia Whelan. I don’t know if it could change anybody from being terrified about the state of the world, but I know that it will not hurt anybody to spend a few minutes remembering that there are other ways to look at things. And so the story about Val Kilmer went from being a story about where he went and turned into a story about someone who still believes that. And along with that, a belief that was instilled in me that no matter what, everything was going to be OK.Īnd in the last five years, I have really lost track of that. I had been raised in a house of tremendous religious observance beyond just kind of traditional Judaism, there was a lot of Kabbalistic mysticism. And the reason that that matters is because in the years since I had started asking to speak with him, a lot of things had changed and so had I. It turns out that Val Kilmer is a man of extraordinary faith. But by the time he finally agreed to speak with me earlier this year, I found a completely different story there. So I thought I was telling a story about where Val Kilmer was. All of a sudden, I realized it had been a really long time since I’d seen Val Kilmer on a big screen. taffy brodesser-aknerĪnd then one day he stopped showing up in movies. Well, I wish I could say that my interest in you was. He was Batman! archived recording (batman forever) 1

He starred as Jim Morrison in “The Doors.” Let’s just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I don’t like you because you’re dangerous. “Top Gun.” archived recording (top gun) 1 What’s your problem, Kazansky? taffy brodesser-akner He was in - archived recording (top gun) 1 He was the quintessential blockbuster matinee movie idol of my youth. I have been trying to write a story about Val Kilmer for about five years. Hi, It’s Taffy Brodesser-Akner, and I’m a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. Produced by Kelly Prime edited by Mike Benoist written by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and narrated by Julia Whelan Taffy Brodesser-Akner tells a story about how sometimes, in the end, everything is different but everything is good.

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