Tom Cruise, Drew Barrymore, and Nicolas Cage are among Hollywood notables who have shared their experiences with the notoriously ‘difficult’ actor.

11 costars or directors who have spoken about working with Val Kilmer

Tom Cruise, Drew Barrymore, and Nicolas Cage are among Hollywood notables who have shared their experiences with the notoriously 'difficult' actor.

By Kathleen Perricone

June 3, 2026 12:12 a.m. ET

Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, and Nicolas Cage. Credit:

Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty; David Livingston/Getty; Amy Sussman/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty

Val Kilmer was an actor dedicated to his craft, perhaps to a fault. Many of his former costars and directors have spoken out on what it was like behind the scenes working with the notoriously difficult star on the sets of films such as *Top Gun*, *Batman Forever*, *Tombstone*, and *The Doors*.

Kilmer, who passed away April 1, 2025, at the age of 65, was fully aware of his Hollywood reputation. And during a 2017 Reddit "Ask Me Anything" Q&A, he provided some insight. He admitted to taking "risks" with his performances while not always considering the potential financial impact on a production, which he acknowledged was "foolish." As he explained, "I was often unhappy trying to make pictures better.”

Here are 11 memorable experiences straight from the mouths of Kilmer's former costars and directors.

Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise in 'Top Gun'.

Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty

The two played rivals onscreen in *Top Gun*, and just like their characters, Cruise and Kilmer shared a complicated bond that evolved with age. During the making of the 1986 movie, the method actors were so immersed in being Maverick and Iceman they hardly interacted when the cameras weren't rolling.

Despite their frosty relationship on the set, "I felt so grateful that he decided to make the film," Cruise told *Sight and Sound* magazine in 2025 about Kilmer, a Juilliard grad, who was reluctant to play a "supporting" role.

"I was calling his agent," Cruise recalled, "and [director] Tony Scott was hunting him down and meeting in an elevator… and he was like, 'Please, Val, please.'"

As Iceman, Kilmer was "just on fire," gushed Cruise. "If you look at *Top Gun*, I think he's in the movie maybe 10 minutes. That's the impact of an artist like that."

Three decades later, when Cruise and Kilmer reunited for the sequel, *Top Gun: Maverick*, "it was like time had not passed. We were laughing and it was joyous. And then we started acting and it's just, you see it… he became Iceman."

By then, throat cancer had greatly affected Kilmer's voice, a detail that was written into the script: Iceman communicated with Maverick by typing his thoughts into a computer.

"He didn't even have to speak," Cruise said. "That's what he's able to do. Beautiful, really beautiful. A gift that he had and that he shared with all of us."

Two days after Kilmer's passing, Cruise took a moment to "honor a dear friend of mine" during his appearance at CinemaCon.

"I really can't tell you how much I admired his work, how much I thought of him as a human, and how grateful and honored I was when he joined [the] first *Top Gun* and came back for *Top Gun: Maverick*. He gave a lot to all of us with his performances," Cruise said.

Warwick Davis

Val Kilmer and Warwick Davis in 'Willow'.

MGM/Courtesy Everett

Kilmer had an ally on and off screen in *Willow*, the 1988 fantasy flick about a disaffected warrior who joins forces with an aspiring magician, played by Davis, to protect a baby princess.

"He's really the reason I got through the making of the film *Willow*," Davis told *** *following Kilmer's death. "Because if ever I was tired, exhausted, fed up, cold, he'd say, 'Come on, keep going!' And he'd be the kind of leader of the army, keeping us going. He was a beautiful man."

Kilmer didn't reprise his role for the 2022 Disney+ series due to his health, and his presence was greatly missed.

"I always like to tell the world how great he was, because I often think the media gave the wrong impression of who he was as a person," Davis told EW. "He was a very warm, generous, kind-hearted person."

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone directs Val Kilmer in 'The Doors'.

TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett

Kilmer embodied psychedelic rocker Jim Morrison in the 1991 biopic *The Doors*.

“His personality was not easy to get along with,” Stone revealed to RogerEbert.com in 2025. “Creative people are often self-involved, and there was a fair amount of stuff you’d expect to see from an eccentric young actor in Hollywood—although, even by those standards, Val was pretty out there.”

The relationship between Kilmer and Stone started off strong, but production of *The Doors *ended on a sour note, especially for the lead star.

"He did a great job, but he was not happy with me or himself, and he was very troubled in many ways," Stone said. "At the end of the movie, he hurt me by saying things to me that were not kind. It was a bitter experience in a sense, you know: ‘Goodbye. Go to hell.’ That kind of thing.”

Despite the fallout, when Stone was casting 2004's *Alexander*, he had one person in mind to play King Philip II of Macedon, the titular character's father.

"I had a hunch that he would be good for it,” Stone said of Kilmer. “And he did it perfectly."

Kurt Russell

Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in 'Tombstone'.

Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett

The making of the 1993 Western *Tombstone* was fairly wild, beginning with its original director getting fired at the start of production. But for Russell and Kilmer, who starred as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, respectively, the chaos only brought them closer.

“I thought his performance was one of his best,” Russell told *Rolling Stone* just after Kilmer's death. “We were always in cahoots. We were always thinking the same thing. That was a big part of why I had such a great time working with him. It was a collaboration in a lot of ways that is a wonderful thing to have.”

Russell admitted he had a soft spot for Kilmer because he got to know the person beneath the tough exterior.

"I don’t disagree that he was complicated, but I just always felt he wore so many things on his sleeve that I couldn’t help but appreciate," Russell said.

The mutual admiration forged a lifelong bond. The last time Russell visited Kilmer before his passing, “It was difficult for him to talk [but] he had wonderful things to say. He had a fairly good sense of humor," Russell recalled to *Rolling Stone*. "He said, ‘Sometimes, I could have been a little bit nicer to a lot of people.’ And he laughed. He was being retrospective, looking back on his life. He was a good guy."

Michael Biehn

Michael Biehn in 'Tombstone'.

John Bramley/Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett

Ever the method actor, Kilmer stayed in character on the set of *Tombstone* by not making nice with Doc Holliday's nemesis, outlaw Johnny Ringo, played by Biehn.

"People ask me all the time about Val Kilmer, and I always say the same thing: I don't f---ing have any idea 'cause I never met Val Kilmer," Biehn said in 2025 on his podcast *Just Foolin About*. "I never spent any time with who I would consider Val Kilmer… There was no interactions. We stayed away from each other."

As Biehn explained it, the lawmen and the outlaws drew a line in the sand on the Arizona set. Kilmer and Russell had their own clique apart from cowboy gang members like Biehn's Ringo and "Curly Bill" Brocius, played by Powers Boothe. The rivalry between Holliday and Ringo ultimately ends in a deadly duel, a pivotal scene that required rehearsing. Kilmer and Biehn drove to the location separately and didn't acknowledge each other once they arrived.

"There was never any, 'Hey Val, how you doing,'" Biehn recalled. "None of that... because he was one of *them*."

Val Kilmer's daughter doubles down on late actor's AI performance: 'We have to contend with this technology'

The 10 best Val Kilmer movies ranked, from the slapstick of 'Top Secret!' to the soul of 'Heat'

Joel Schumacher

Val Kilmer and 'Batman Forever' director Joel Schumacher in 1995.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

*Batman Forever* felt like an eternity for its director. Kilmer, who took over the role from Michael Keaton for the 1995 installment, was "childish and impossible" to deal with, Schumacher told ** in 1996 — after he replaced Kilmer with George Clooney for *Batman & Robin*.

"[Kilmer] was being irrational and ballistic with the first AD, the cameraman, the costume people," Schumacher revealed. "He was badly behaved, he was rude and inappropriate. I was forced to tell him that this would not be tolerated for one more second."

Kilmer was so upset, he didn't speak to the director for two weeks.

"It was bliss," Schumacher quipped.

Drew Barrymore

Val Kilmer, Nicole Kidman, Jim Carrey, and Drew Barrymore in 'Batman Forever'.

Barrymore had a much different experience making *Batman Forever*.

"Val Kilmer was so nice to me," the actress, who played Two-Face's cohort Sugar, remembered on *The Drew Barrymore Show*. "So nurturing and kind and safe, which was a very important thing for me.”

John Frankenheimer

Val Kilmer in 'The Island of Dr. Moreau'.

Richard Stanley, the original director of *The Island of Dr. Moreau*, jumped ship only three days into filming due to "argumentative" Kilmer. Frankenheimer took over for the project — and inherited Stanley's same difficulties. Except he gave it right back to Kilmer.

The actor once tried to give his opinion during a scene, but Frankenheimer cut him off before he could finish: "I don't give a f--- [what you think]." The moment Kilmer wrapped his final scene, Frankenheimer reportedly remarked, "Now get that bastard off my set."

But the director went on-record with EW to broadcast his unfiltered thoughts on the star: "I don’t like Val Kilmer, I don’t like his work ethic, and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again.”

Nicolas Cage

Val Kilmer and Nicolas Cage in 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans'.

Lena Herzog/First Look

Kilmer got to tap into his comedic side in 2009's *Bad Lieutenant*: *Port of Call New Orleans*, playing the partner of Cage's titular character, a drug-addicted police detective trying to solve a string of murders.

The two had been longtime admirers of each other and forged "an interesting relationship," Cage told Collider.

"We don't have a friendship per se, but would write letters to each other, from one actor to another, offering support to one another, as we did for *Tombstone* and *Leaving Las Vegas*," Cage said. "We always knew there was camaraderie there… So to get a chance to work with Val was a good thing, and I hope we'll have more to do together. He is my brother, in many ways, as a fellow artist."

When his former costar passed in 2025, Cage reflected on sharing the screen with Kilmer in *Bad* *Lieutenant*, saying, "I admired his commitment and sense of humor."

Jorma Taccone

Jorma Taccone and Val Kilmer at the 'MacGruber' premiere in 2010.

Jesse Knish/WireImage

Kilmer and his director got off on a strange foot when they first met to discuss the 2010 action-comedy *MacGruber*, a parody of *MacGyver*, starring *Saturday Night Live*'s Will Forte.

"I drove out to Malibu to meet him, and his door was open," Taccone recalled on *The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast*. "I go in the house, and he's on the balcony… throwing these little chips or something into the ocean, and he's going, 'Are you a king? Are you a king?'"

Kilmer then started tossing the "little paper chips" at Taccone.

"It takes me, like, a couple minutes to figure out that he was invited to Mardi Gras that year to play King Bacchus, the guy who leads the float," he explained. "And these are little paper chips that he's supposed to be throwing out to the crowd with his face on it."

Ultimately, Taccone realized Kilmer "was just messing with me," and it was the start of an amusing relationship.

"He was such this wonderful ball-buster of a human being, just f---ing with life and just, he was on every level the most interesting mind," the director said. "I will forever remember that particular meeting."

Val Kilmer in 'Conspiracy,' directed by Adam Marcus.

Courtesy Everett

Kilmer's director in 2008's *Conspiracy* waited until after the star's death to break his silence — and he didn't hold back on his not-so-fond memories.

"#MicroIntellectMonday to that time when I directed that guy," Marcus teased in a June 1, 2026, post on Threads. "The guy who played Iceman and Doc Holiday [sic]. You know the one. Here’s me and the Putz working it out on the set of *Conspiracy*," he wrote, including a photo of himself and Kilmer, who played a disabled veteran investigating his friend's disappearance in an Arizona border town.

The timing could not have been any worse, just a little over a year since the actor's passing. Marcus didn't care, however.

"And to any of you rolling your eyes because of the whole 'don’t speak ill of the dead bullsh--', f--- that," he continued, adding that if Kilmer "did one-tenth of what he did on my set today, he would have been cancelled in a blink. Worst human being I’ve ever known… and that is really saying something."

Marcus didn't elaborate on what Kilmer allegedly did on *Conspiracy* and ultimately deleted the controversial post altogether.

- Celebrities & Creators

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Celebrities”