Val Kilmer on Angelina Jolie: “The perfect picture of unapproachable stardom”
It’s the sort of comment an actor probably couldn’t get away with making today, but Val Kilmer was happy to share with the world that one of the most exciting aspects of a production he was gearing up to work on was the chance to get up close and personal with a fellow star.
His honesty can’t be faulted, at least, and there’s no chance he’s the only thespian in the history of the moving image to find themselves gripped with anticipation of schmoozing with one of the industry’s most prominent female sex symbols. Unfortunately, the film where he got to indulge himself was complete and utter dog toffee.
A damning indictment on why some passion projects should remain unmade, Oliver Stone spent decades harbouring the ambition to realise the life story of Alexander the Great on an epic scale. When he did, nobody was particularly thrilled with the end result, which includes the cast, one of whom was hit hard by a heavy dose of reality when the film was released in 2004.
Colin Farrell admitted that he was confident he’d be striding down the red carpet at the Academy Awards as the leading man of a top contender, only for Alexander to bomb thunderously in cinemas and be pulled limb-from-limb by critics. Stone released no less than three alternate versions, but when the best of the bunch is merely passable, it was a waste of time and effort.
On the plus side, Kilmer’s Macedonian ruler King Philip afforded him the opportunity to be the on-screen spouse of Angelina Jolie’s Queen Olympias, which was more than enough for him. “I couldn’t wait to kiss Angie, buy her a Gulfstream jet, and have V+J painted in rainbow glory on the tail,” he admitted in his memoir I’m Your Huckleberry, per People.
“She had recently adopted her first child, Maddox, and the paparazzi were obsessed with this postmodern Madonna, the perfect picture of unapproachable stardom and impossibly chic maternal instinct,” he continued, revealing that he jokingly informed Stone he’d only take on the part if their characters “could have flashbacks to falling hard for each other and storming the castle with passion, before turning against each other”.
By his own account, he was only “half kidding”, but the director “didn’t pick up on the humour”. He did end up getting his wish in real life, though, after Kilmer and Jolie were romantically linked following Alexander‘s dismal debut, where he described her as being an “angel” who rescued him “from an icy inferno of solitude” during their brief dalliance.
Stone may have been nonplussed at the actor’s suggestions for on-camera canoodling, but in the end, Kilmer didn’t get quite so far as getting to splash a private jet with their own bespoke insignia.
