Blessed, Life and Films of Val Kilmer

by William Hamilton

  It wasn’t all bad according to Val, “You know, Warner Brothers was very indulgent and kind and so were the cast and crew, but basically I was goofing around. And I did a lot of experiments and things I was interested in, and techniques with video to transfer to film, and Warner Brothers kindly let me run around with the camera in everyone's face, but there’s no documentary.”

  “Red Planet” director Antony Hoffman says, “You have to hold your own against him. He kept me on my toes. But he’s very generous. He has a charming quality about him, but he also can go to a very intense place where no one knows what the hell he’s thinking. He’s always thinking, and he has moody spells. You just have to work with them, or work through them.”

  “I have a sneaking suspicion, that he made it (“Red Planet”) for his children. The movie deals with passing generations, and it looks at the environment and asks, what are we leaving for our kids? He never came out and said it, but I always had the sense that it had a message he wanted to leave for his kids.”

  Pollack

  12/15/2000

  Ed Harris stars and makes his directorial debut in this portrayal of Jackson Pollack. The idea for the film started when Harris was talking to his father about the modern artist, and his father remarked about the similarity of their appearances, and gave him a book about Pollack’s life.

  From this humble beginning it took 15 years for Harris to get the film made. He invested his own money into the project in order to complete it, and learned to paint like Pollack, no small feat considering Pollack is considered a master of his trade.

  Harris plays the lead role to the fullest, and received an Academy Award nomination for best actor. Marcia Gray Harden won the Academy Award for best supporting actress with her portrayal of Pollack’s wife.

  The screenplay was based on “Jackson Pollack: An American Saga” by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1991.

  Val plays a small cameo role as abstract expressionist painter Willem De Kooning.

  Television

  Val has made numerous appearances on television beyond movies and documentaries. He has been on the talk show circuit to promote films and other projects he’s been involved with. In 2000 he also was the guest host on Saturday Night Live where he spoofed some of his own movies.

  At the last Academy Awards, he made a live, unrehearsed appearance with one of Trigger's descendants who clattered about wildly in a fit of stage fright as Kilmer kept his cool.

  Here is a list of most of his recent television appearances.

  Kickin' It 9/28/03

  Good Morning America 9/29/03

  Regis & Kelly 9/30/03

  Conan O'Brien 10/1/03

  Wayne Brady 10/2/03

  Craig Kilborn Date 10/2/03

  Late Show w/Carson Daly 10/9/03

  The Late Late Show w/Craig Kilborn - 5/17/02

  Entertainers with Byron Allen - 4/27/02

  Live with Regis & Kelly - 4/26/02

  Tonight Show with Jay Leno - 4/22/02

  The Late Show (CBS) - David Letterman - 11/17/00

  Kickin' It w/Byron Allen - 11/11/00

  Inside The Actors Studio (Bravo TV) - 11/5/00

  E! News Daily (E!) - 11/2/00

  The Tonight Show (NBC) - Jay Leno - 11/1/00

  The Charlie Rose Show (PBS) 1/13/99

  The Tonight Show (NBC) - Jay Leno - 1/4/99

  Regis & Kathie Lee - 4/10/98

  The Late Show (CBS) - David Letterman - 4/9/98

  The Tonight Show (NBC) - Jay Leno - 4/4/97

  This Morning (NBC) - 4/4/97

  Good Morning America (CBS) - 4/4/97

  Larry King Live (CNN) - 3/31/97

  E! Val Kilmer Uncut (E!) - 3/30/97

  Oprah - 3/25/97

  Today Show (NBC) 10/14/96

  The Charlie Rose Show (PBS) 10/9/96

  The Salton Sea /High Stakes at Salton Sea

  4/26/2002

  There are two related but very different but related Val Kilmer projects, “Salton Sea” and “High Stakes at Salton Sea.” I think that his work on the movie helped to direct Val’s attention towards the problems of the real Salton Sea, an ecologically troubled section of California. The area is an ecological wasteland that has the potential to be a wonderful community with a diverse ecosystem.

  The two are interrelated not just because of the titles, the Salton Sea is like a metaphor for the plot of the movie, there is a Tom Van Allen, a great man with all the potential in the world, and then he becomes Danny Parker, a speed freak, who has filled his body with this junk. So is there hope for Danny, or do I mean the Salton Sea?

  High Stakes at the Salton Sea

  The Salton Sea might be saved partially because of Val’s work in the documentary. The Salton Sea is an unusual body of water because there’s no run off to the ocean or other body of water, the only way water leaves is by evaporation, which creates higher than normal salt and pollution levels. Birds, fish and the whole ecosystem is endangered; some birds have already died.

  California’s population is growing and some have looked at using the Colorado River for drinking water, but this would be detrimental to the area, as the Colorado drains into the Salton Sea, which helps to dilute the pollution. The late Sonny Bono spearheaded the effort to help the area, and the congressman got 19 million dollars to start the process of restoring part of the area. It seems unlikely that the current effort will be able to save all of the Salton Sea, which is “A test too important to fail, too difficult to pass,” according to Val. More information about ”High Stakes at the Salton Sea” is available at http://www.water-ed.org from the Water Education Foundation.

  The Salton Sea

  Val read the script all the way through the first time he read it, but this was the director’s first movie, some actors of Val’s stature wouldn’t want anything to do with a director’s first movie, but according to Val, “I was drawn to working with a first-time director, and the challenge of that. So many directors aren’t passionate about the subject the way a first-time director is. They’re usually doing it for the money. So if the director is not inspired, that’s bad. And D.J. Caruso was so thorough, and ready to go.”

  “I lost my little brother and DJ had lost his older brother, so we had this bond from the beginning. He had something to say on the subject of loss, more than just wanting to make a good movie.”

  And Caruso got along with Val, “Val loves to be directed and wants the director to be so much of a participate in the process that he could be regarded as consuming and that aspect may have had a negative response from other directors. I didn’t mind it because I felt we shared a common bond of wanting the film to be as good as possible. I can’t speak for other directors, but I remember Val telling me a story about working with Joel Schumacher and one time (described in the introduction of the book)… I think that if you say something like that to an actor like Val, it’s wrong because he seems to take a more intellectual approach to his work.”

  "I’m really interested in acting,” says Val, “and I enjoy (Vincent D’onofrio s) work. I make a point of seeing everything he does. I wanted to talk to him about acting, but he doesn’t talk about it. I don't know why, but he doesn’t.”

  Danny Trejo and Josh Todd had both done meth, (and been reformed) which helped the cast to get into realistic characters. Peter Sarsgaard, Doug Huthison rounded out the excellent cast.

  Val had an idea that his character should have a lot of tattoos because most of the tweekers he had talked to had them. They used the same people who had put his tattoos on when he was working on “Heat,” but this time it took three and a half hours to apply the tattoos. They tried to keep them for more than one day, but, Val says, "I’d wake up and it would be red all over the sheets.

  “Most of [my tattoos had] really specific stories. They were really poetic.” Val explains, “I got shot in the shoulder. So that became this burst, and the flames. The other arm is a band of mourning, pretty obvious. I had
just never seen it and I thought it was a cool idea to tattoo a band. And the one on my back. I just thought that the guy is so scarred and in so much pain he brands himself with the place where he lost her at the Salton Sea.”

  Val, like usual, tried to learn the songs he was to play in the movie, but, he says, “My children said it sounded like a dying elephant,” so he just learned to finger the part.

  With the wonderful direction and a great script, how could the movie fail? The first thing was September 11th, so they had to push the movie back, then they thought it was inappropriate for Christmas. Warner Brothers was the distributor for the movie, that had as much to do with as any other cause for the financial disappointment of the movie. According to Caruso “Warner Brothers never would have made this film.” He also says that when the studio found out he had cast Val they cut his budget in half.

  Another bad effect of the film was to cause a rumor that Val threw a whiskey bottle at the director. Doug Hutchins explains, "Well, here’s an example of how rumors get started and perpetuated by incidents distorted through gossip. On one particular night - after an already looooooong day of shooting when exhaustion was setting in and nerves were becoming frayed - Val grew impatient with a shot that seemed to be taking forever to shoot. Eventually, at wits end, Val threw his prop whiskey bottle down in a show of frustration and it smashed into pieces on the parking lot. A few glass shards flew up nearly missing some of the camera crew … but, thankfully, no one got hurt … and Val stormed off the set, unable to continue. A few days later, in some tabloid or other, I read something to the tune of ‘Enraged Kilmer hits director with whiskey bottle!’”

  “Val is such an ef--fing good actor. He gives 100%. Now I won't lie – he’s a bit … um … eccentric. Sometimes just being in Val’s orbit was like taking a hit of blotter acid…I was most impressed by how committed Val was to making a good movie. “

  Val won the 2003 Prism Award for best performance in a theatrical film, Cinequest’s Maverick Spirit Award, and the Prism Award for excellence in addiction portrayal.

  An interviewer asked Val how he liked working with Caruso, “Well, he’s much better in bed than Oliver Stone (laughs).”

  Hard cash/Run for the Money/In God we Trust

  2002

  “Hard Cash,” also known as “Run for the Money,” and “In God we Trust” is a little film that Val did with his pals Christian Slater and Daryl Hannah. This was a TV movie that changed its name for video.

  Masked and Anonymous

  7/24/2003

  If they made a movie with a whole lot of stars, do you think it’d sell really well? What about if it had Jeff Bridges and Penélope Cruz, Huh, and throw in Bob Dylan, John Goodman, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, enough stars yet? Throw in Bruce Dern, Ed Harris of course Val Kilmer, Cheech Marin, Mickey Rourke, Christian Slater, Fred Ward, Steven Bauer Chris Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, Richard Sarafian, Susan Tyrrell, Tracey Walter, and finally Robert Wisdom.

  When do we get to see all of those stars shine? The movie already came out, and bombed with a capital B. Total box office was $555, 000, and with an estimated budget of 7.5 million, that’s a big loss. It makes you wonder about how Hollywood works.

  That said, the movie is a Bob Dylan work, and is a largely allegorical tale about the decline in Western society. Dylan’s songs are present throughout the picture, it seems like he was going for an epic story about a revolution in America, an America not quite exactly like ours.

  “For me, the movie has three fundamental themes,” says Larry Charles (director). “First, it is Bob Dylan on the road not taken – what might the world be like without the transforming influence of our cultural icons? Second, it is about the social masks and armors we all wear to remain hidden and protected from one another. In this story, each of the characters are brought to the brink and have no choice but to rip off the mask and reveal their true nature. And thirdly, the film explores the role that destiny, fate and random circumstance play in our lives. The film is an experimentation and exploration of the phenomenon of language itself.”

  John Goodman talks about his character, “This guy probably reminds me most of Don King. He opens his mouth and stream-of-consciousness poetry just pops out. The script is highly stylized, almost like a classical piece in the sense that you bring your own interpretation to it. I think the role is also full of the portent of the dangers of American capitalism and hucksterism. Uncle Sweetheart is a show, even if he’s hanging by a thread.”

  Jessica Lange has this take on her character, “When you hear people talk about the last surviving species – that’s how I tried to approach Nina. She’s a sort of wild child – existing amidst the last gasps of the society.”

  Penélope Cruz talks about her character, “She has created her own superstition and she feels that by doing these rituals and praying in her own way that she can protect herself and the people that she loves… She has a fear that if she stopped doing it, something bad might happen to someone.”

  Luke Wilson explores his character, “He’s kind of like a street dog that’s been kicked around and doesn’t really have a home. All he needs is somebody to give him direction.”

  The production came together overnight, in the early summer of 2002, to take advantage of a window in Dylan’s touring schedule. The director and producers quickly assembled an experienced stage crew and prep for the film in about a quarter of the usual amount of time required for a project of this scope.

  “Larry was very specific about the aesthetics of the mood, the shooting style and methodology,” says Marie Cantin (executive producer). “We had devised a shooting strategy to accommodate the restrictions of our time and budget, but he also wanted to work this way in order to create a feeling of spontaneity – the sense that you are watching things unfold in real time.”

  “I wanted people with strong points of view,” says Charles. “I told them not to worry about offending or disagreeing with me and not to censor themselves. I wanted them to have as invigorating an experience as the actors.”

  Production designer Bob Ziembicki agreed to step in and accomplish the impossible in time to start shooting. “The good news was that Larry was very articulate about his vision of this third world alternate reality universe we were creating,” says Ziembicki. “It was the notion of a spent world, in which the old order has crumbled; a world in which previously used objects and materials were valuable because there wasn’t much of anything left.”

  Ziembicki helped chose the hundred-year old Casa del Mexicano in East LA as the site for the presidential palace, he says, “This is a wonderfully theatrical location, which has definitely seen better days. It played a part in establishing the third world banana republic backdrop for our President, whose formal portrait is a recurring presence throughout the film.”

  “He (Charles) had the notion of a bazaar out of the 1960’s (for the concert scene) with a lot of international influences – Mexican, South American, Asian and Arabic – which are visible in the design of the tents and caravans as well as the food and crafts people are selling. Once again, this is a world in which people don’t have many possessions and we worked with that limitation in our approach to the design and set dressing,”

  A number of actors who had completed filming, came back to watch the band perform, including, Val Kilmer, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Ed Harris, Steven Bauer, Robert Wisdom and Tracey Walter.

  Wonderland

  10/3/2003

  The director James Cox became interested in the Wonderland murders three years ago when he was watching a documentary. His next step was to try and contact Dawn Schiller Homes’ girlfriend to see if she would help in the production, but she was skeptical of him, “I had been burned by people doing documentaries and books.”

  Val also didn’t want to do the part at first. They offered the role to him eight times, but he kept on turning it down. Holly Wiersma, a co-producer, says “Holmes is not very likable in the script so there has to be something
about him that’s charming. Without his charm, it wouldn't have worked.” Val had had experience turning dubious real people into likeable movie icons with his roles in “The Doors,” “Tombstone,” and “Billy the Kid.”

  Lisa Kudrow got involved with the project, “I was wincing when I first read through the script. I kept expecting my character to show up in some porno scene. But that scene never came, and she’s an altogether different person than you’d expect.”

  With Kudrow on board, the project seemed to be more palatable to Val, he says, “…I love her acting, I loved the idea of her doing this. And also just how radical it was. When I read it I immediately hoped there would be more scenes with Sharon (Kurow’s character, Homes’ wife) and Dawn, and then when I found out that Kate (Bosworth) was going to play Dawn, I thought the same thing. I just liked thinking about the story of these two women (who had an unusual relationship).” Besides his interest in acting, Lisa and Val share a similar background; they’re both from the San Fernando Valley, where, the Laurel Canyon murders took place. There hadn’t as brutal of a murder since Manson.

  Val also read a spiritual context into the script, “…I thought there is a very harsh and damming God in this story. If you do drugs, you suffer in James Cox’s world. There are consequences, which I believe anyway. But at the same time, anyone who’s a drug addict is trying to escape the pain of mortality. It’s painful to be in this world, so you can’t really fault someone for that. They’re just picking tools that don’t work.”

  Val was so committed to researching the part, he convinced Dawn to participate in the filming. Dawn says, “He wanted to understand John. John wasn’t just a porn star or an addict or something simple. He was a tragedy. He was a good guy at heart who became a slave to cocaine. Val wanted to understand that, and I came to trust him.”