Val Kilmer — star of The Doors, MacGruber, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Batman Forever — died this week from pneumonia. News of his death broke shortly before he was set to make a rare red-carpet appearance at the Beverly Hills Film Festival Tuesday night. The actor had been appearing less in public after his diagnosis of throat cancer in 2015. He made a documentary about his life in 2021 and appeared in a cameo in Top Gun: Maverick at Tom Cruise’s request in 2022. This week, everyone from Nicolas Cage to Weird Al is remembering their favorite moments from Kilmer. A lot of them involve the underwater fight scene in Top Secret!
One of Kilmer’s closest co-stars, Tom Cruise, paid tribute to the late actor at Cinema Con, a film industry convention in Las Vegas. On April 3, Deadline reported Cruise shared a heartfelt speech before leading the audience into a moment of silence. He said, “I really can’t tell you how much I admire his work, how much I thought of him as a human being, how honored I was when he joined Top Gun and came back for Top Gun: Maverick. I think it would be great if we could all just take a moment and think about all the wonderful times we had with him. Would you all mind doing that? Let’s just take a moment.”
“I always liked Val and am sad to hear of his passing,” Nicolas Cage said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “I thought he was a genius actor. I enjoyed working with him on Bad Lieutenant and I admired his commitment and sense of humor. He should have won the Oscar for The Doors.” Speaking of The Doors, Jennifer Tilly shared a story on Twitter about seeing Val-as-Jim blow everyone away. Tilly described going on “kind of a cattle call” audition for Jim and Pam (Morrison, not Halpert). “All of a sudden, a ’60s convertible came screeching up, blaring Doors music at top volume. And a guy jumped out and strode inside: He had wild hair and he was barefoot, shirtless, and wearing nothing but a pair of tight leather pants,” she wrote. “We all looked at each other like … Who is this guy? We were more than a little shook by the sheer audacity of his entrance. Well of course it was Val Kilmer and from that minute on, nobody else stood a chance. RIP King.” Below are tributes from Kevin Smith, Josh Brolin, Francis Ford Coppola, and more.