Near the end of his life, Val Kilmer was able to revisit one of his most famous roles: Tom “Iceman” Kazansky in Top Gun: Maverick. It was a character he initially had no interest in playing.
Kilmer died on April 1 from pneumonia at the age of 65, his daughter, Mercedes, told the Associated Press. The actor had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, which necessitated an emergency tracheotomy. Kilmer’s voice was impacted, and he said he had to figure out a new way to communicate.
In 2022’s Maverick, Iceman — rival aviator to Tom Cruise’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell turned loyal comrade — was terminally ill and used a computer to help him communicate. Filmmakers digitally altered and blended Kilmer’s real voice when he spoke in the scene.
The reunion of the characters was a highlight of the well-received film — and one Cruise said he “rallied hard” for. For Kilmer, playing Iceman again felt like a reunion “with a long-lost friend.”
Cruise said no Maverick without Kilmer
Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced Maverick and the 1986 original, said that Cruise insisted Kilmer reprise his role.
“He said, ‘I’m not making this movie without Val,” Bruckheimer told the Hollywood Reporter.
Bruckheimer called Cruise “the driving force” in making it happen. “We all wanted [Val], but Tom was really adamant that if he’s going to make another Top Gun, Val had to be in it,” he told People.
Kilmer and Cruise on the set of Top Gun. (Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
Cruise had “some ideas” about how the reunion scene should play out, Bruckheimer told the Hollywood Reporter, “and we loved it.” When they filmed, “it was a very emotional day, having Val there and seeing him work with Tom after 35 years. These two brilliant actors were going at it, and it was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
On the set, Kilmer was “a consummate professional,” Bruckheimer told Yahoo Entertainment. “He works so hard. He’s a brilliant actor, and you can see it in his performance in this movie. It’s really heartfelt for me. And I think for audiences too.”
Cruise told Entertainment Tonight that he “really rallied hard for [Val] to make the movie. The kind of talent that he has, and you see that scene, it’s very special.”
Cruise said that shooting the scene brought him to tears.
“For him to come back and play that character,” he said on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “[Val’s] such a powerful actor that he instantly became that character again. You’re looking at Iceman. I was crying … I got emotional.”
Kilmer’s daughter, Mercedes, who produced the 2021 Prime Video documentary Val, said she was on set to witness the reunion.
“I saw it live and it was extraordinary,” she said. It means a lot to my dad, as he’s very proud of that film. It was trippy, and very special, for my dad to be on set with all of his friends who made this movie when they were my age.”
Glen Powell played one of the young naval pilots in the sequel, and his character, Jake “Hangman” Seresin, had hints of Iceman — with confidence for days. He said he didn’t attempt to model his character after the original, though, because he’d be shooting at the moon.
“I can’t top what Val did in the first one,” Powell told USA Today. “I tried to make Hangman stand on his own.”
Director Joseph Kosinski told the Hollywood Reporter he was “a little nervous” showing Kilmer the completed scene for the first time “because we really wanted him to like it. But his response was beautiful. He was so happy and so moved by it that it made us all feel really good and that maybe we had gotten it right.”
Kosinski explained the process, saying that Kilmer and Cruise performed their scene “and then we enhanced Val’s voice by blending it with another one, mostly for clarity, more than anything else.”
When Maverick came out, Kilmer shared a still of the reunion with Cruise, writing, “36 years later… I’m still your wingman” with a heart.
In a rare interview with People, Kilmer said reprising the role of Iceman was “like being reunited with a long-lost friend. The characters never really go away. They live on in deep freeze. If you’ll pardon the pun.”
Kilmer almost wasn’t Iceman
The Julliard-trained actor has said he initially had no interest in playing the character in 1986’s Top Gun.
“I didn’t want the part. I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me,” Kilmer wrote in his 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry. “My agent, who also represented Tom Cruise, basically tortured me into at least meeting [director] Tony Scott, saying he was one of the hottest directors in town.”
Kilmer said at the audition he acted like he didn’t want the role, showing up “looking the fool” in “oversize gonky Australian shorts in nausea green” and reading his lines “indifferently.”
Later, “amazingly, I was told I had the part,” he wrote in his memoir. “I felt more deflated than inflated.” Scott told Kilmer the “insufficient” script would be improved.
In Val, Kilmer said, “I thought the script was silly, and I disliked warmongering in films. But I was under contract with the studio, so I didn’t really have a choice” in taking the role.
While making the film, his “main joy was the camaraderie of the cast, [producers] Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, along with the incredible, unflappable enthusiasm of Tony Scott and Tom Cruise,” Kilmer told People.
Kilmer said in Val that he “would purposely play up the rivalry between Tom’s character and mine off-screen as well,” avoiding Cruise and Anthony Edwards in a method actor style.
He said his crew was Rick Rossovich, who played Slider, who he called the “funniest strong man in show business back then,” and Barry Tubb, who was Wolfman.
“Oh, we all laughed till we fell down the hot, spiked crabgrass at the Holiday Inn in San Diego,” Kilmer said.
And while it “was fun to play up the rivalry between [Iceman and Maverick],” Kilmer said “in reality, I’ve always thought of Tom as a friend — and we’ve always supported each other.”
