Getty Image / Eric Robert
The world woke up this morning to news about the loss of Val Kilmer, one of the most revered and beloved Hollywood actors over the past five decades. Nicolas Cage, who worked with Val Kilmer on Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans shared a touching tribute about his friend.
Val Kilmer brought his charm to more iconic roles than I have time to mention here. The vast majority of actors are lucky to get just one career-defining role but Kilmer had Ice Man in Top Gun, Doc Holliday in Tombstone, Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors, and many, many others.
It was Val Kilmer’s take on Jim Morrison in The Doors (1991) that Nic Cage made mention of, believing that Kilmer deserved to win the Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’ for his role as The Doors’ frontman. Cage wrote to Deadline, saying:
“I always liked Val and am sad to hear of his passing. 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.”
Looking back, The Doors was released on March 1st, 1991 and the Academy Awards that year were held on March 25th so realistically, had Val Kilmer’s role been considered for ‘Best Actor’ it would have been the following year in 1992 at the 64th Annual Academy Awards. Let’s take a look at the nominees that year…
For me, as an elder millennial, Val Kilmer was Jim Morrison. Virtually everything I came to learn about Jim Morrison and The Doors was from that movie. And Kilmer was PERFECT at Jim. But the Academy didn’t agree and The Doors didn’t warrant any nominations while Silence of the Lambs swept the awards winning Best Picture, Best Director (Jonathan Demme), Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), and Best Actress (Jodie Foster).
For context, Anthony Hopkins appeared on screen in Silence of the Lambs for just 24 minutes and 52 seconds of the film, roughly 21% of the 1h58m runtime. Conversely, Val Kilmer appeared on screen for almost all of the 2 hour and 21 minute runtime of The Doors AND he sang all of the live performances of the band/Jim Morrison himself!
For his role as Jim Morrison, Val Kilmer was nominated for Best Actor at the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards and Best Male Performance at the MTV Movie Awards but didn’t win either and it just makes no damn sense to me. That role was iconic!
Another industry icon who shared a touching tribute with Deadline was Heat director Michael Mann. For what it’s worth, I’m re-watching (for the hundredth time) that movie as I write up this article because it has been too long and because The Saint is currently behind a paywall.
On working with Val Kilmer, Heat director Michael Mann said “while working with Val on Heat, I always marveled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character. After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”
Countless other Val Kilmer tributes have been pouring in since the news broke late last night.