Val Kilmer. The real Maverick in the Hollywood skies

«What is wrong with this type?». It is just one of many titles that throughout Val Kilmer’s career they expressed the enormous perplexity before an actor who could have the world at his feet, if only were willing to collaborate. But with all his seductions and although he had supplied him so much so as not to get problems, he felt a strange itching, and recognized early that success would do nothing for his demons. It was enough to enter a room, and its beauty was anything but vulgar, it had an ethereal quality, and at the same time ferina, it was an actor who was doing well by rock star, and the fact is that Hollywood has a problem with his actors, which is always the feeling that they were aspirants, while he had that air of an angel sought to a post in hell. Of course, the first roles that came toward you made use of these attributes. The debut on the big screen was in 1984, in the espionage movie Cold War Top Secret!in which he embodied an American singer in Berlin, which caused a sensation with movements of Elvis style hips, whose ghost would later interpret, and was swallowed by a conspiracy of East Germany to gather the country.

And if one of these actors who leaves the whole industry for the pouting arises, it is natural that their resistance has caused a lot of resentment. He even recognized that the problem is that it was the kind of actor who has the most to give these extravagant secondary characters, but was stuck in the body of the typical Hollywood protagonist. This mismatch led to the arc of his career to be insistently narrated on the basis of this deception. Even in the farewell, there was no shortage of titles to regret the actor who could have been greater. Also, so many of your choices are of those that would cause a heart attack to an agent. Francis Ford Coppola wanted him in The OutsidersBut he preferred to debut on Broadway in a play that nobody remembers today. David Lynch wanted him in Blue Velvetand he refused. In the mid-1990s, he accepted the role that was supposed to give him the level of projection that seemed to be doomed. Replaced Michael Keaton as the nightly vigilant of Gotham, in Batman Forevera movie that did not humble themselves at the ticket offices, but was coldly received by critically abdicating Tim Burton’s black view in favor of a more apathetic record, in line with the 60s television series. Warner Bros. still offered him the sequel, but Kilmer no longer wanted. And if he would be the first to recognize that he did not follow the script of success, over time it was clear that he was looking for himself in his roles.

Despite all the paths that did not follow, Kilmer emerged with a body of work that was almost challenging his own. Hence the nature of his career, this question about the possibilities that has a artist of testing his abilities, and today, turning back, even if the movies cannot stand, in the midst of all pomp we see a kind that is really compromised, and that fights with conventions to express the absurd side but also this candor of those who wanted to convey something deep.

This actor, born and raised in Hollywood, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 65. The cause was pneumonia, according to his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. In 2014, he had been diagnosed with a throat cancer, which eventually stole his voice, and, however, reports from sources close to Kilmer that he has spent the last years in bed, having been severely weakened following the treatments he was forced to do. Last week, her health worsened, and Kilmer eventually succumbed to pneumonia. He was last seen in public in 2019 at the Thespians Gala Go Hollywood. However, his last appearance on the big screen was a real tribute, having a brief but memorable participation in the film Top Gun: Maverickof 2022, in which he re -enhanced with Tom Cruise, and it was possible to circumvent the absence of speech using artificial intelligence.

Everyone involved seemed to be aware that the scene would be a corner of the swan to Kilmer. And as soon as it may be, it is moving because it is true to the kind of actor he was, someone who clearly never was afraid to make unexpected choices and always seemed eager to provoke audiences, to disappoint and, at the same time, regain them.

There is its unforgettable performance as Jim Morrison in The Doors (1991), by Oliver Stone, where he wanted to sing himself and live the songs, and when he found resistance from the director, made him a bet: Kilmer sang, and if Stone didn’t give the difference, then they did as he wanted. But that’s not why it left the bar very high for the actors who came after making this kind of biopics. Kilmer really seemed to have risen Morrison, and if the movie does not impress that much, we couldn’t take our eyes off him, and feel that he brought back that degree of abandonment, danger and sensual and psycho -psycho energy that made the leader of that band seem a shaman in such a drastic, captivating and cathartic ritual. To deny the absolute genius of that performance is to pass alongside an interpretation that fully exceeds the logic of representation.

Of course, for that, we need to be in the presence of a very unusual type of artist, and the other side of this passion left a trail of conflict that eventually dominated his reputation. Although there are no lack of examples of difficult actors, and there are even some tolerance to these temperamental abuses, it has always been in force in the industry a kind of Omertà, in which, in favor of the success of the final product, the behind -the -scenes tantrums and bulhas should be secret, being the privilege that recognizes artists with so much to lose. But Kilmer did not seem to hostage, nor reinforce his defenses at the level of public relations, letting the weather sour and others come to wash dirty clothes in public. It seemed to be in the paints for the purpose that this could have in his career, being the real Maverick, someone so confident in his abilities that he could afford to enjoy the training program and rehearse the most foolhardy acrobatics, as if the genius himself fed on that risk of losing everything to lose.