by Val Kilmer
He answered, “To stay on your journey.”
“What journey is that?” I asked.
“A journey,” he said, “for the clergy. You’re on a journey for the clergy.”
I’m not sure I understood that exchange, but I am sure that this encounter with Iceman’s father imbued my character with greater fury.
The only person who honored the process more than me, I think, was our brilliant Tony. One day at dusk, we were up in a helicopter. He was trying to get a perfect angle on the aircraft carrier where most of the film takes place, and I was along for the ride.
I couldn’t understand what he was trying to capture. There were so many fumes and we were losing the light, and I thought he might be going mad. And then, suddenly, the clouds were rainbow sherbet, and you could see circles of rainbow smoke curling, falling on the water as the aircraft carrier danced its dance. Just like Tony had dreamed. It was incredible. I glanced over to smile at him or give him a little nod, and as I turned toward him, tears were rolling down his cheeks.
When I finally saw the film for the first time, on the Paramount lot, I jumped up after the first five minutes and yelled, “This is a hit!” 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, past their assistants, and into the royal quarters, where the prince himself, Simpson, was seated behind his massive desk.
“Don,” I screamed with stars in my eyes, “you’ve done it!”
Jerry looked up at us both. Don’s response to my declaration was to jump on top of his desk, clad in his signature cowboy boots, and assume the pose of a cartoon superhero. His stance was earned, and I cheered. It was so wild a move from Don as to be normal.
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.
Ah, Tony, Tony, Tony. I don’t know why you killed yourself, but I miss you almost every damn day. In 2012, Tony drove to the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, and jumped off the highest point.
When Tony was making a television show that needed a bit of a face-lift, he asked me to appear. Despite the fact that I hated TV, I didn’t hesitate. I’d hang around him as we filmed and just observe. Tony and I would wake up and have coffee on a bridge near our set every morning at dawn, overlooking the Mississippi River. So when he jumped, I almost felt like I had a memory of it.
You’re So Twain (Carly)
I’d been to a concert of the divine Who. The Who had done it. Right in our faces. It was a starlit night when the wonderful voodoo Who smashed through time. With their heady mix of vanity and humble homage to the rock gods that birthed them, the Who had blasted our brains for hours on end. No chance of sleep. Parties and camaraderie till the wee small hours in the Big Apple. Now it was time to head home.
The city streets were empty. In my mind, I heard Paul Simon singing “The Only Living Boy in New York.” Moments later, I imagined my old friend Peter Gabriel crash-landing and floating over my head like a million monarch butterflies, crooning tunes from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. It was an oddly soft daybreak, when the island is usually overrun with traffic and people and police and maids walking their owners’ dogs. This morning, though, was different. New York had found a temporary lull, and I, walking its concrete canyons, was in the center of the calm. The only sound was the ca-clack ca-clack of my genuine Beatle boots, which I’d bought on St. Mark’s Place, boots I’d been wearing so long that I’d walked off the life of the rubber but didn’t care. Those boots could never leave my feet. They directed me to where I needed to go, and this morning I needed to go on this stroll for reasons I could not fathom until I quickly approached an intersection where, standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street, was a woman who looked like Carly Simon. It was Carly Simon. Carly Simon was facing me. She on one side of the street, I on the other, waiting for the green light to turn red.
The ca-clack ca-clack of my Beatle boots and the ca-clack ca-clack of my heart beat in the same frantic rhythm. The rhythm was too frantic. I had to slow down. I didn’t want to; I wanted to run across the street, fall on my hands and knees, and testify to my love of her music and her smile and the sheer see-through summer dress that revealed more than my eyes could absorb. I wanted to scream, wanted to declare my devotion to a woman I had never met. I wanted to do handstands and somersaults while declaiming Shakespearean soliloquies and quoting the sexiest passages from the Song of Songs. I wanted to tell her how I had discovered the secrets of her music from No Secrets and knew all the pain that she, a shy woman, had endured because shyness had also been my lifelong companion, which was a secret I was willing to reveal only to her. I wanted to tell her everything but shyness kept me from saying a word. And then the light changed and we were approaching one another. Humming “Anticipation,” I told myself that if she smiled or even waved at me, then yes, we would meet again.
She walked off the curb. I walked off the curb. And she did smile, a smile radiant enough to wash over me like a sacred salve, and she walked right by me with all the poise of a fairy-book princess.
If our first encounter was encased in eerie solitude, our second unfolded in hysterical mayhem. It was the massive after-party for the opening of Top Gun. For some reason, the premiere was in New York. Celebrities were flitting about like fireflies, champagne flowing, strobe lights flashing, paparazzi straining to break through the VIP velvet rope guarded by an army of real fighter pilots, or so it seemed. I had arrived with Cher. Our romance was ancient history but our friendship forever fresh. Cher, though, had wandered off and I couldn’t find her. That was unusual. Not being able to find Cher is like being in the Sahara and not being able to find the sun.
But no matter. We were good friends, and I wasn’t jealous. Cher had many men. Every time David Geffen, one of her main men, sees me, he points and declares, “When it comes to Cher, there’s only one man I’ve ever been jealous of. Oh, that Cher…” He makes a fist and shakes it at the air before adding, “She said she loved you best, but what do you got that I ain’t got? Don’t answer that.”
And then, there was Carly, dressed simply, dressed elegantly, standing next to a woman and appearing accessible. My courage was up. We were not standing on a street corner. We had both just seen a film in which I was one of the top guns. I could approach. I could walk right up to her and say, “If I gave you my number, would you call me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember we sort of met once?”
“I would have remembered.”
She had a way of making me feel completely stupid and not mind it. I usually don’t like feeling stupid at all. Ever. But I was happy as hell; like the Iceman village idiot, I might’ve even giggled. (I am sweating, nervous about-to-go-onstage palm sweat, as I write this.)
She called a week later and invited me to her apartment, only about ten blocks from mine. Carly’s home on the Upper West Side looked and felt and smelled exactly like you would dream it. We talked all day about everything under the sun. We talked about shyness. We talked about Harry Nilsson. We talked about Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas and the evils of yellow journalism and the exquisite phrasing of Frank Sinatra. We talked and talked and talked. We had dinner. The hour grew late and then Carly asked, “Would you like to stay in my guest room?”
I would. She bade me good night. I slept alone, slept like a baby, dreaming dreams in which I made the music of the spheres. In the morning she greeted me with a tray of perfect organic eggs and jams from her favorite shop on Martha’s Vineyard, where she’d been going since forever. It was the best breakfast of all time. I wanted to be with Carly every day of the rest of my life.
“I wrote a song yesterday for Mike Nichols’s next film,” she said. “Would you mind listening to it?”
I would not mind. I
probably would have jumped right out the window overlooking the unspeakably beautiful Central Park if she’d even mildly hinted that it might make her happy. She had utter power over me. As she played her acoustic guitar and sang with a sultry subtlety that is Carly’s and Carly’s alone, I have no idea how I kept from kissing her, but I did.
Our friendship flowered. She invited me back to her apartment, where her grand piano overlooked Central Park, and she played original songs she considered too anemic to record. I considered them soulful masterpieces. She often spoke of her children, Ben and Sally. I think the reason we soon stopped seeing each other was her realization that it was too overwhelming for me. Her shy sensitivity saw through my soul.
She saw that I was madly, hopelessly in love with her. I’m not sure I ever spoke those words, but you must have known, Carly. You, being so wonderfully well-read; you, being so openhearted; you, having grown so gracefully from your auspicious family tree; you, having blossomed into an artist of singular enduring beauty. There is surely a hidden and seamless sweetness to your craft, Carly, and to your very nature. And it is not the sweetness of sugar, no. It is a more wholesome, salty sweetness, the sweetness of honey. The beauty of the bees, the way that they alchemize nature, that’s what you do in your music. And all I can do is thank the holy spirits that, despite a shyness that is as endearing as it is painful, you have expanded the sky.
Let’s Go Upstairs
Suddenly I felt I had to leave New York. I no longer wanted to wake up in the city that doesn’t sleep. In fact, I no longer could wake up. Because I was never going down. The literal and spiritual electricity is crazy. If you want authentic Maldivian fish at three in the morning, you can find a cool place or even have it delivered. Beyond everything I loved—the art and theater and music and dance—beyond its beating avant-garde heart and its pulsating creativity, its dirty bricks were almost burned with the energy, and they weighed heavily on my soul. I wanted to feel open and wild and free. To be in a place defined by spirit, not responsibility.
L.A. was not a possibility. Growing up there, it held no exoticism whatsoever in my mind. I remember recently I ran into a close friend and fellow native Angeleno, Angelina Jolie. We were on an airplane heading back to LAX, and her children were sprawled across many seats, sleeping peacefully. She whispered, “All I ever wanted to do was leave this city, and now look at me.” As rooted as roots can be.
No, a home in the Hollywood Hills or a spread in Brentwood or Beverly Hills held no interest for me. I confess to harboring hatred for the San Fernando Valley, scene of my childhood. I consider it the bottom rung of hell. In saying that, though, I must acknowledge the gifted director Paul Thomas Anderson, who in Boogie Nights and Magnolia was able to show me the improbable and (up until his films) invisible beauty of the Valley. It was also Paul who introduced to me the genius of Philip Seymour Hoffman. He didn’t star in Boogie Nights or Magnolia, but he illuminated both films. I was wild for his work. I watched his every movie and marveled at his craft. There are scores of superb actors but some, like Philip, have a mystical ability for complete transformation. I think of Gene Hackman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, and Peter Sellers, to name a few. Philip ranks in the highest of dramatic categories.
I lacked Paul Thomas Anderson’s fresh eyes in viewing the expansive Los Angeles landscape and instead fled to Santa Fe. Ever since being drawn there by my father throughout early childhood, I had liked everything about the town, especially the vibrant community of sculptors, painters, and poets. I found a fabulously funky house, half of which was for rent. Its owners were several brothers who lived with their mother, stricken by a stroke and confined to a wheelchair but once infamous in Santa Fe for throwing parties that attracted the bohemian community. I had heard that once the merriment got under way and the music was blaring, Mom would lift her dress to reveal panties whose lettering read, “Let’s Go Upstairs.”
Despite my fear of someone spiking my morning coffee with acid, it seemed like the house where I wanted to live. It was funky and offbeat, with a screw loose, like everything great in what was left of the Wild West.
The sole moment of hesitation came when I was about to sign the lease and the Realtor, respecting his obligation for full disclosure, mentioned that one of the brothers had been convicted of murder. Pause for thought. I decided to confront the siblings. “I’ve heard that one of your brothers is in prison for murder,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Well, yeah, our older brother, but he’s out now, and he feels real bad about it.”
I signed the lease.
Those years were marked by the presence of a woman in my life whom I never expected to meet again. She was the same woman who had been running through my dreams since the first time I saw her. I didn’t try to meet her. It happened, though I don’t know how. Saying I am lucky is an insult to belief and to the will of God. I surrendered to that will, but I suppose I was not above tampering with the timing. I wanted this woman and was in a great hurry to win her love.
WE’VE JUST MET BUT MARRY ME PLEASE
Hello, let’s find out about forever together and
Will you purchase Sen-Sen?
Will you be my gal?
Will you shine that big roller coaster up into the sky?
Will you give me grown-up feelings?
Will you kiss my eyes?
Will you buy me flowers?
Will you send one by? And
Will you bury me?
Bury me?
Bury me?
Bury me?
Bury me when I die?
—Indian Ocean at sea, 1982
Willow
I had turned down David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Dirty Dancing. I had done so with little regret. Neither part spoke to me. In the aftermath of their success, though, regret did rear its ugly head—I am not, after all, immune to “could have”s or “should have”s. We all have misgivings, yes we do. I wish I had not said no to so many brilliant directors. Like Robert Altman. I loved his films and really respected his willingness to follow his heart and just make smaller films when Hollywood seemed to feel the need to punish him for his expensive misfire with Popeye. We all make mistakes. But have you seen Nashville lately? And David Lynch I turned down more than once. I had loved him since seeing his first film, Eraserhead, but the original script for Blue Velvet was, in my opinion, a high-quality porn film. It seemed to me that David was aspiring to make a XXX-rated film. It had extremely graphic depictions of sex acts, and I was just too much of a conservative spirit about sex to participate in celebrating it in that way. There was just no way. I sure wish he would have called me when he changed his mind about how to best dramatize his extremely compelling ideas. Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe one day we can finally work together. A character who lives up on Mulholland and doesn’t speak much? David, I am so sorry I never explained myself.
Instead, I signed onto Willow, a massive George Lucas production directed by Ron Howard that was expected to become the blockbuster of 1988. I was cast as Madmartigan, a swashbuckling, overenergized swordsman. The real hero, though, is Willow himself, masterfully played by Warwick Davis, whose journey to realize his potential as a sorcerer sets the story in motion.
I flew to London and visited the production office to see who would be cast as my costar, the gorgeous warrior Sorsha, who, by falling in love with me, betrays her evil mother. Even now as I see the aspiring actress walk into the room to read the lines, my heart beats as loudly as it beat three decades ago. It was Joanne Whalley, the woman whom I’d watched for weeks while I was shooting Top Secret!, the same woman I had failed to approach but who had not failed to haunt me. Mind you, I had not arranged her audition. I had no idea that she was up for the part. She read with an effortless cool that made it clear to everyone she was indeed Sorsha.
So it happened. We met as peers. In the film, I would pursue her, and until late in the story, she would rebuff me. There were echoes of Kate and Petruchio in The Taming of th
e Shrew. There were also echoes of this same scenario in real life.
Willow benefited from fantastical special effects and the famous Lucas-lubricated storytelling. George was George because he was on every tiny detail, even riding lessons, which he canceled when he found out I was an excellent horseman. However, in the mountainous regions of New Zealand and Wales where we were filming, I had to ride English style, because it’s all my horse knew and because we were engaging in pretty dangerous stunts. I thought lessons were crucial. At one point, I grabbed a prop in the form of a giant wooden cross, wore it on my back, and walked to the dailies theater to broach the subject. He obliged and allowed me to continue the lessons, but his look told me I had won the battle but lost the war. I wouldn’t be stealing a turn as Han Solo any time soon.
My part required some athletic challenges that I enjoyed, but the character himself didn’t have a lot going on. He was strong, healthy, and hopelessly romantic. I suddenly felt that I didn’t have a lot going on upstairs, either. My mind and desire were concentrated exclusively on Joanne. Madmartigan has to slay a fire-breathing two-headed dragon to win Sorsha’s love. Meanwhile, off-screen, I had to do even more to win Joanne’s love.
