Kilmer’s struggles with acting through the costume apparently informed some of his tension with director Joel Schumacher-whom he speaks of otherwise in glowing terms in his memoir-and his decision to not continue with the role. In fact, it was watching those kids where he realized they didn’t care who was in the suit, remarking he might as well have been Betty White.
Noting the other best part about the role being “half the Hollywood community” bringing their kids to set to meet him in costume, Kilmer otherwise has few positive thoughts about the production. The world’s alleged greatest martial artist couldn’t even lean back in a typical La-Z-Boy. “Oh, how I adored the chaise longue!” It allowed him to recline without having to bend over in all that rubber. “The chair became my friend, my crush, and my only comfort,” said Kilmer. He ultimately surmised the part is a trap, “and the trap was the suit.” Weighing close to a hundred pounds and essentially deafening him, the suit left Kilmer feeling isolated and looking for solace from the special chaise lounge they set up for him. However, after accepting the Batman Forever role without reading the script, his illusions about playing the Caped Crusader were quickly shattered. “With two franchises going- Batman and The Saint-I could start an artists’ community, write poetry and plays, and become the wild auteur I saw as my destiny.” “I was buzzed about being Batman but hardly for artistic reasons,” Kilmer wrote. However, when it came to accepting the role in the mid-1990s after Michael Keaton bowed out of playing the character, Kilmer is more frank 25 years on than your typical junket interview soundbite. When it comes to discussing the Dark Knight, the actor is entirely gracious to the character and Batman’s biggest fans-noting how much he admires their enthusiasm at Comic-Cons. The memoir also provides an outlet for Kilmer’s personal musings about his career and private life, including, yes, his time as the Batman.
Luckily, the prodigious artist also recently released a memoir about his various exploits, Val Kilmer: I’m Your Huckleberry.Īffecting an authorial tone that’s more conversational and intentionally scattershot-he introduces his book as though the reader is about to enter a “pinball machine” inside his mind-the book covers some of the same ground as the documentary (and glosses over some of the doc’s most painful elements, too). Relying mostly on the vast reams of camcorder footage he saved over the course of his life, the movie observes as much as it enters Kilmer’s mind. Yet as good as the doc is, its impressionistic view of the actor’s life tends to leave some of his sardonic musings and general conviviality off the screen. Hence the film must must talk about his time as Bruce Wayne in 1995’s Batman Forever. Melancholic and wistful, the film documents Kilmer’s eclectic career as a rising movie star in the 1980s and ‘90s, and his more recent battle (and victory over) cancer. It’s easy to see why after the premiere of the documentary Val, a new release from Amazon Studios and A24.
Val Kilmer is back in the public conversation.
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