Blessed, Life and Films of Val Kilmer

by William Hamilton

  “But he couldn’t get the miniatures to look right. So one day I come home from high school and I go up to my room and my clothes are all over the floor and everything’s been pulled out of my closet. I’m looking around thinking maybe I did something to send Wesley into a rage. Nothing was stolen but it looked like someone had lost their mind in my room. As I looked around, it hit me: My hangers are missing. And then I noticed all my sheets on the bed were gone and the foam from the sofa had been pulled out. So I started calling out, ‘Wesley! Wesley! Where are you?’ I found him in the rec room, the place where Roy Rogers had his horse Trigger stuffed and mounted on two hind legs, and Wesley is in there with this twenty-foot octopus. He’d taken all the coat hangers, wrapped them in foam, and was filming this octopus.”

  “I burst in and he said, ‘Shut up, shut up,’ and you just couldn’t help but be involved—immediately—because there was a twenty-foot octopus in the room. He’d get obsessed. And he really didn’t care what you’d think. He had an immediacy that made him...very free.”

  Bring inspired throughout his life by his brother, Val sought out a higher level of acting. “I was a real snob. I was interested in classical theater simply because it was the hardest thing to do.” So Val applied to Julliard, and became the youngest student ever accepted as of that time.

  “I was in Pittsburgh -- my mother had moved there with her second husband. The car is packed to go to (Julliard)… “I had a dream. My girlfriend at the time was Mare Winningham. In the dream, her mom, who was a devout Catholic, was telling me all about how death was no problem at all…(the next morning) We’re about to leave when the phone rings. It’s my older brother, Mark, who tells me my 15-year-old little brother, Wesley, is dead. He had drowned (as a result of an epileptic fit)… so instead of coming here to start a new life, I went back to California for his funeral…I was helping my mom, who was completely shattered… It was a sense of loss, because he was so gifted, and absolutely world-class talent.”

  “I had desperation about that hurt... it just seems like you’re just standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon... and the wind is blowing really hard. You don’t know why you should even fight it because you know if you just let yourself go and fall off you won’t know hurt anymore.”

  “(Julliard) was a place to make sense of my brother’s death, to apply it to my life. That is the only value those of us living can take out of someone passing. . . .The understanding he gave me about art and life was. . . a gift…(Julliard) took a lot of work, but some good came out of it: I learned that those qualities had of my brother’s were not lost. I was able to find them and respect them.”

  “But I didn't become somebody else because Wesley died. Instead, I saw really clearly what the impact of a life could be. Without the confrontation of death, you can’t really comprehend how life is love, and love is life. I was the luckiest one in the family, because I was blessed with the opportunity to deal with my grief while I was beginning a new life. I went to school and got a lot of joy and knowledge from people who knew that they were doing and felt the power of it. At the same time, there was a part of every day when I’d be by myself and think about Wesley and remind myself never to forget his life.”

  Another Side of the Journey to Julliard

  When James Lipton interviewed Val for the Bravo Channel, he asked, “When Kevin Spacey was here he said that one of the turning points of his life was at a high school drama festival when he saw you and Mare Winningham in ‘the Prime of Miss Jean Brodey,’ and there was a drama teacher named Robert Correlli who invited him to transfer to Chatsworth High School, and he went there because he had seen the two of you act. What was Chatsworth like? It sounds like a very good place.”

  Val answers, “It was amazing... I don’t know why... such talented parents I guess moved to that end of the valley, but they had a very popular thing in the public school system that were these drama festivals. And Robert Correlli, who was our teacher, had a knack for producing and directing. And it was either Beverly Hills High because of their very talented pool of students, or Chatsworth High that would win all these festivals.”

  “And then had a great teacher at the school I went to named Hal Horner who’s still teaching. He’s a Dean at what they call the Upper School at Principia in Illinois. He was just fantastic.”

  Val talks about the Julliard auditions, “I wrote my own piece because I couldn’t find anything that would be fresh. They’d heard everything and I knew that, so I decided to do my own thing and see how it went.”

  Sand

  (Julliard Audition)

  Sand. It is poured in my side

  when it is still and it is night

  and ground on even lines rests in sleep.

  When sheets and pillows

  and smooth mounds that comfort

  and are like home safe

  distort and move into what is pain for me.

  And then I move.

  And then I ask for my dream again.

  And that's a point where I can never really be sorry.

  I can only apologize for you.

  ”For you,” she said,

  ”It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full.”

  Now I truly believe that.

  Only it must be as when in our ignorance of innocence

  we had our choice of things.

  Because we left things the way they are,

  without sand.

  It is poured in my side,

  when it is still and it is night

  and I see plain,

  and my error remains,

  and I choose to lose my senses to sand again.

  Now I really must go.

  Julliard

  “It was inspiring to be connected to the faculty that were out working often. The voice and speech departments were working on projects on Broadway and going to see them and hearing and talking to the actors involved was stimulating, but we also kind of needed a sense of direction, my particular group that we didn’t really get from the faculty. We sort of had to do it on our own.”

  “Well, I was never really satisfied at Julliard. There were things I had to do my own way, even at the risk of getting kicked out. I said, ‘Listen, if I get hung up on something and it paralyzes me all day and it makes me obsess on how to do a certain speech or scene, isn’t that what the school should be about?’ They were right and so was I.”

  One of the reason’s Val wanted to go to Julliard was the New York theater world, but he couldn’t find what he had imagined, an opportunity to be like Brando, “the only kind of actor that appealed to me. Not just personality, but that ability to express themselves and their unique point of view, to transform themselves into something that could touch your heart.”

  “They were always threatening to kick me out. I was just trying to be responsive to what I felt. And it’s a terrible feeling to be honest, to be sincere, and to be slighted for that. Until fairly recently – I’m embarrassed to admit – I was still kind of holding out for that ideal. I would just go in and talk to the studio guys and explain what was happening. They spend $80 million on a movie that doesn't work. (I’d) spend a lot of time being pretty bitter about what the movie really was that I was lured into, and I found myself not being very fulfilled.”

  One positive about Julliard was the opportunity to act with long-time friend Kevin Spacey. “He was chosen out of the whole student body, because we were one male short for a Chekhov play, early ‘Uncle Vanya,’ and he played my father, and he knew my father, and it was pretty scary how well he played him.”

  ”I had a friend visit New York for the first time and I said, ‘the thrill is. . you can see anything here. And the tragedy is that it becomes commonplace and you become hardened to the joy of how insane people can be...’ Then we rounded the corner and there was a man in a convertible pink Cadillac. Naked. Doing a headstand. And I said, ‘See?’ This guy wasn’t asking for money, either. Which I thought was to his credit. He was a purist.”


  Theater

  Val says, “I would (like to do more theater). I haven’t in quite a few years now. Something makes me feel uncomfortable when I look at the calendar and see how long it’s been, because it’s really my first love.”

  “My love for acting is based on theatre because I like the contact with people. It’s just something that you don’t get in movies. When you’re working on a film, you get up before the sun comes up and go to bed just after it goes down. You have to discipline yourself to read the newspaper. But in the theatre, you can walk down the street and see an old lady on Fifth Avenue and she gives you an idea about playing a 20-year-old. If you’re not funny, they don’t laugh. And if you’re not moving, they don’t cry. On a movie you never know. No matter what, the crew is bored with what you’re doing by three weeks because they’ve seen it all a hundred times.”

  Despite all of this when Kilmer was about to graduate from Julliard, he says that Broadway was collapsing. “There were no examples of what we were learning. The search for acting led to my co-authoring a play to integrate what we were learning - the mechanics of voice production, etc.”

  Val started a class project with twelve of his peers, and it turned into a play he co-authored called “How it all Began.” He says, “My first professional job was really wonderful. We’d written a play about a West German terrorist while I was in School at Julliard here and (Broadway producer) Joe Papp came to see it because he heard about it and basically conned the school into spending more money on the play and fixing it up. With the idea that if the adjustments made it a better play that he’s produce it, which he did. So, I graduated on Friday, we did a tech rehearsal on Monday at the public theatre of a play we wrote, which as pretty great... So, we kept getting extended – putting on a play that ran six weeks and then we had an opening with a week to go so that it couldn’t affect the box office. We were sold out – had standing ovations. We’d reviewed and they’re rave reviews – and they destroyed the play.”

  ”We all got so full of ourselves and the play. It was real tight, like an hour and a half, and it ended up being two hours and ten minutes after these great reviews because everyone’s monologues got all stretched out. If this is what happens with good reviews... I’ve never read them since.”

  The play was based on an autobiography by Michael Baumann entitled, “Terror or Love,” about how he descended from being a protester to a terrorist. Val played the part of Mr. Baumann, one reviewer noting, “Val Kilmer’s sympathetic portrayal of the shockingly naive and likable Baumann gives the quicksilver piece an unwavering point of reference.”

  The play was a major accomplishment for a man graduating from college and his classmates, and he found another opportunity with Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn in “The Slab Boys.” At the time both Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn had been in major movie roles. The play had won awards when it was shown in its original country England. The play attracted a large amount of people who didn’t normally attend plays, people “in leather jackets and punk haircuts” according to Time Magazine. The cast was a young and popular one, and this was probably the reason, Sean Penn had just completed “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

  Then Val did a few films, but his next major role in theatre was meatier. Written by John Ford in the 1630’s, and adapted to be set in fascist Italy in the 1930’s, “‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore” is a Jacobean tragedy that still seems over the top today. The main plot is about the effects of incest and end up with Val’s character killing his sister.

  One reviewer says, “Callousness and a deceptive air of durability are the key here, for Giovanni (Val) is Hamlet without a conscience or an intellect. Watching him in the grip of something larger and stronger than himself, we have to believe that he thinks he is in control… Watching Mr. Kilmer come on to her, you feel that if he were your brother you’d put out, too.”

  While another reviewer agrees, “The acting honors include virtually the entire cast: Jeanne Tripplehorn in the title role justifies all her brother's (Val) lovesick praises.”

  It was a few years before Val got a chance to act on stage again, he got his chance with “Hamlet” at Colorado Shakespeare Festival; a challenge that Val couldn’t pass up.

  Val says, “It comes closest to the complexity of his (Shakespeare's) own soul. Imagine, with his mind, how bored he must have been most of the time? With ‘Hamlet,’ he created a fabric that even he could puzzle over. The play can be done in so many different ways, and all of them can work.”

  Mr. Devin, the producing director talks about the play, “‘Hamlet’ is one of the most meaty plays ever written and one of the longest ever written. You are therefore faced with the choice to either cut it well so it doesn’t lose its integrity or do the whole thing which then means a four and a half hour long play. The other main challenge is to keep it fresh for the audience. In the 42 years of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, ‘Hamlet’ has been done seven times. The festival has a lot of repeat customers and I think it's refreshing and good for the audience to see a different perspective on the play.”

  Gavin Cameron-Webb, the director says, “I was teaching at Julliard at one time but not when Val was a student. That was before I taught there. When the opportunity came for me to direct ‘Hamlet,’ I asked one of my Julliard colleagues, Tim Monich - a brilliant speech and voice man - who he thought would be the best choice for the role of Hamlet. He immediately suggested Val. It was Tim who contacted Val to see if he would be interested. Val came and met me in New York - at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Fortieth Street to be exact, and we discussed how we wanted to proceed. Then all that remained was to persuade the producer at the time that Val was the right actor for the role.”

  “We decided not to do a traditional piece. Val and I worked very closely prior to the production. Val was kind enough to come to New York and we worked together on the text. The decision was made early on to do it in modern dress as ‘Hamlet’ was originally done in the modern dress for that time period. We felt that the story was extraordinarily modern.”

  ”I thought (Val) gave a first class rendition of the role - I really did... He is a perfectionist - extremely talented. He was very serious about his work and very demanding of himself in the work. Val loved to work with the other actors. Directing him was a real privilege and a joy because he’s so good and because he would reach and explore and do all the things that I would like an actor to do.”

  ”Val’s performance was exciting,” Mr. Devin remembers. “Always interesting and fresh. He brought a lot of himself to the performance. He really worked very hard. His Hamlet was extremely well done. It had a lot of clarity with excellent attention to the language. He was a brooding, solemn Hamlet. Sometimes he was funny as Hamlet has a lot of lines where he makes funny comments about people in sidebars. Basically though, Val’s Hamlet was a brooding, melancholy Hamlet.”

  ”Every era produces its definitive version of ‘Hamlet’ and Val Kilmer's performance may come close to creating a ‘Hamlet’ for our decade. As the Prince of Denmark, Kilmer combines a hip young brashness with a nuclear-age despair. Instead of being paralyzed by indecision, his Hamlet decides to savor the decadence of the world he lives in. He uses morbid irony to distance himself from his wretched circumstances, and through the course of the play, he undergoes a journey from numbness and alienation toward feeling and responsibility. Only an actor well versed in Shakespeare could succeed with this approach, and Kilmer is comfortable enough with the language to pull off his bold and original line readings. He puts unexpected, yet logical twists, on the most familiar passages.”

  Val speak about the casts intimidation, “The tension was thick, but I was referring to Bernard Shaw’s comment that if the actor playing Hamlet does one ridiculous thing, then the entire performance is ridiculous. So I turned to the company, dropped my pants and said, ‘I hope we all do a lot of ridiculous things during this production.’ That’s part of ‘Hamlet’: If you think about it, it’s a very absurd play
.”

  All 12 performances sold out in a record nine days and phone lines were so jammed at one point that the entire University system was disrupted. Mr. Devin, Lighting Designer, explains, “(the) total increased by about 5,000 that season. Val’s performances were sold out as soon as the box office opened. We had thirteen-year-old girls trying to climb over the barriers and that hadn’t happened before. The terrific thing was that the following season was just as successful without a big-name attraction. People liked what they saw so much that they came back for more.”

  Val’s other plays include, “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” “The Tragedy of King Richard III,” “Orlando,” “Sand” (written by Val) “Taylze” (written by Val), “Henry IV Part One,” “The Glass Menagerie,” “Equus,” “Twelfth Night,” “Or What You Will,” “Beyond The Horizon,” “The Ghost Sonata,” “Electra and Orestes,” “The Alchemist,” “The Comedy of Errors,” “The Wood Demon,” “As You Like It,” “Kingdoms,” “Moments In Classical Literature,” and “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”

  Movie and TV Introduction

  Movies are the reason Val is famous, and this section is a comprehensive overview of all of the feature films and made for television movies. Val has had a long career in the movies, and we’ll look forward to seeing him in the future.

  Val has become everything from a cowboy to a space janitor, an FBI agent to a speed freak, and everything in-between. The movies and TV shows are in chronological order, but topics about his life are scattered throughout. We start with Val’s first appearance to the American public, an After School Special called “One Too Many.”

  One Too Many

  1983

  “One Too Many” is an ABC special about four high school kids and drinking and driving. The cast is amazing staring Michelle Pfeifer, Mare Winningham, and Lance Guest and of course Val. This was the public’s first taste of Val, who played the bad boy alcoholic.