Val Kilmer doesn’t even need to appear onscreen as Iceman in “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) for the audience to feel his presence.
Early on, Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” Mitchell is texting with his old rival, Iceman, but even though he’s just represented by words on a screen, you know exactly who that is, the joy of Kilmer’s boisterously cocky performance in the original 1986 film echoing through your memory.
It makes the moment Kilmer actually shows up, late in the film, all the more powerful. Maverick has come to him for counsel. Kilmer still projects a regal energy, only now his character has earned his haughtiness, which presents as wisdom. Time has softened him a little, but Kilmer does not play Iceman as humbled. Instead, he’s more confident than ever, a sage of sorts even if the years have taken away his voice, as they did with Kilmer himself, who suffered from throat cancer.
It seemed like everyone involved knew that the scene in “Maverick” would serve as a swan song for Kilmer, who died Tuesday at the age of 65 from pneumonia. But as brief as the sequence is, it is a reminder of just what kind of actor Kilmer was, one who thrived on unexpected choices and was constantly eager to surprise, no matter what the context.
In his youth, Kilmer looked like the ideal movie star, with smoldering good looks that were punctuated by naturally pouting, kissable lips. That classically beautiful appearance could have led him down a different path, and, sure, Hollywood occasionally tried to make a traditional leading man out of him. Most notably he was constrained as the vigilante in the cowl in Joel Schumacher’s “Batman Forever” (1995). But he thrived more as a character actor, bringing a bit of weirdo spice to the screen.
His friend Robert Downey Jr. called him “chronically eccentric.” That eccentricity is in part what contributed to reports throughout his career that he was difficult on set. It’s also what made him compulsively fascinating to watch. He chose and performed roles eccentrically. It wasn’t that he was over the top, it was that he was perpetually unique.
He could have been pigeonholed a number of times. He made his debut as a rock star in the spoof “Top Secret!” (1984), leaning into a silliness that belied his training at Juilliard. Iceman, just two years later, also could have been an archetype that Kilmer returned to throughout his career. But while Kilmer’s characters often exuded an arrogance that could be self-defeating, he was never interested in repeating himself. He arguably didn’t get enough credit for how much he transformed from part to part.
As Doc Holliday, that legendary figure of the American West, in “Tombstone” (1993), Kilmer affected a syrupy way of speaking that was seductive but also vaguely threatening. Holliday is suffering from tuberculosis and often drunk, but instead of wobbling with intoxication and disease, Kilmer is oddly still. It makes him entrancing and also somehow unnerving.
His dedication could make him seem overly intense. In the 2021 documentary about his life, “Val,” he explains that for “Tombstone,” he had the art department fill his bed with ice for his final scene with Kurt Russell’s Wyatt Earp: He wanted to feel his character’s pain as the two part for the final time. The result is innately soulful.
That same soul can be seen in Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995), in which he plays Chris Shiherlis, a member of Robert De Niro’s band of robbers. Kilmer makes Chris a gleefully maniacal criminal, but at the same time, he is more than just brutality. Most crucially, he is a tender romantic whose entire worldview is shaped by his dedication to his wife, Charlene (Ashley Judd). The smile he gives her, just before she quietly signals that the cops are onto him, is genuine and sweet. When the smile fades as he realizes he has to leave her behind to save his own hide, the result is heartbreaking.
But Kilmer could also be fun to watch onscreen, sometimes despite himself. He said in a 2014 interview about “Top Secret!” that the directors, Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker, “always wanted me to have more fun, but I wanted to be good and I took it all way too seriously.” Eventually, he seemed to learn to lean into goofiness while still maintaining his meticulousness.
His turn in Shane Black’s chatty Hollywood neo-noir, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (2005), is a perfect example of that. Opposite Downey Jr. as a thief-turned-accidental actor, he plays the private investigator Perry van Shrike, also known as Gay Perry, because, in fact, the character is gay. Kilmer said he had been the one who wanted Perry to be gay. “I insisted,” he told The Guardian. “I said, ‘Shane, we gotta get a little color in here. We gotta juice it up a little.’”
But while that could have resulted in offensive stereotypes, Kilmer just makes a meal of Black’s rapid-fire dialogue. His frustration with Downey’s character, who becomes his de facto partner, is almost charmingly exasperated as he yells about the $2,000 ceramic gun his mother got him as a “special gift.”
Later, Kilmer would allow himself to seem even more ridiculous, playing the conniving and intentionally stupid villain Dieter Von Cunth in “MacGruber” (2010), based on the “Saturday Night Live” sketch. Kilmer told The Wall Street Journal: “I’m proud of how bad this film is.”
Sometimes the story of Kilmer’s career is told in terms of what he didn’t do. He didn’t appear in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders,” opting to star on Broadway instead. He declined to make David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet.” He only did one Batman movie.
But for all the paths he didn’t take, Kilmer emerged with a body of work that was almost defiantly his own. He was a shape-shifter who committed to heart, tragedy and absurdity in equal measure.
You can feel the weight of his legacy in the “Maverick” moment. Before letting Maverick go, he says, “One last thing — who’s the better pilot, you or me?” Maverick responds: “This is a nice moment. Let’s not ruin it.” That Kilmer smile flashes as he chuckles, reminding you of his thoroughly unconventional presence.
