Val Kilmer on pranking 'laser-focused' Tom Cruise during 'Top Gun': 'I thought it would break the ice'
It's hard to imagine anyone other than Val Kilmer playing the "Iceman" to Tom Cruise's "Maverick," but if Kilmer had his way years ago, he never would have been in Top Gun. The Daily Beast ran an excerpt from his just-out memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, in which Kilmer reveals he "didn't want the part."
"I didn’t care about the film," Kilmer writes. "The story didn’t interest me."
Kilmer's agent, who also repped Cruise, persuaded him to meet with director Tony Scott. Kilmer agreed to audition for the role of Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, but didn't try all that hard.
"I showed up looking the fool, or the goon. I wore oversize gonky Australian shorts in nausea green," Kilmer recalls. "I read the lines indifferently. And yet, amazingly, I was told I had the part. I felt more deflated than inflated. I had to get out of there."
Scott chased after Kilmer and promised that while the script is "insufficient," it "will get better."
"I know you’ve been told this before, I know you’re a serious actor, but you are perfect for this role," Scott said. "It’s as if they wrote it for you. It has to be you. It’s not the lead, but I’m going to make you feel like it is. And this kid we found, Tom Cruise, he has it, man, and you two together, and Kelly McGillis — you know her from Juilliard, she’s nine feet tall and utter perfection."
Kilmer remembers Scott as "a wrecking ball to my consciousness. I had never before been treated with such passion."
The director kept the same energy on set, which helped fuel Kilmer. "Ultimately, he overwhelmed my disdain for the project with pure unadulterated positivity," he writes.
Kilmer reveals he didn't hang out much with Cruise off-set.
"The actors broke into two camps—mine and Tom’s, a reflection of the rivalry between our two characters," Kilmer says, noting how his crew were "the party boys."
He adds, "Tom refrained from our revelry, with good reason. From day one, he was laser-focused on a singular goal: to become the greatest action hero in the history of film. He was up nights learning lines; he spent every waking hour perfecting his stunts. His dedication was admirable. Of course even more admirable is the fact that he achieved his goal. I also love that he’s a Mark Twain fan. Tom is a comrade I respect and admire, though as creatures we hail from galaxies far, far away from one another."
Kilmer says his "favorite moment" with Cruise involved a "small prank."
"I gave him an extremely expensive bottle of champagne but placed it in the middle of a giant field and made him follow scavenger-hunt-style clues to find it," he shares. "I hid behind a bleacher and watched him lug the giant crate to his motorcycle. He never did thank me for the Iceman-style bit. I thought it would break the ice, but I guess the ice was just right."
When he saw the film for the first time, Kilmer knew Top Gun was a hit after "the first five minutes."
"The editing and sound were stupendous. The minute it was over I made a mad dash across the lot to the office of the film’s producers, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer," Kilmer writes. "'Don,' I screamed with stars in my eyes, 'you’ve done it!'"
He continues, "In the final analysis, Top Gun’s iconic endurance is the result of the untiring dedication of Don, Jerry, Tony, and Tom. Optimism can work wonders. Infusing things with light was a sport Tony Scott had mastered, and one I would emulate for many years to follow."
I’m Your Huckleberry is out now.
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