The role Val Kilmer could never escape: “It’s just part of my life”
Val Kilmer was born on the last day of the 1950s, entering the world just before the start of the 1960s, a revolutionary decade for cinema. The actor had made it just in time to watch the medium progress rapidly, growing up alongside the release of iconic New Hollywood movies that would certainly come to inspire a love of cinema in the budding star.
He dominated Hollywood in the 1990s with fantastic performances in everything from The Doors, playing the enigmatic Jim Morrison – and even doing his best to sing just like him – to Heat, appearing alongside legends like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Kilmer also embodied the titular superhero in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever in 1995, a rather iconic role that led to plenty of divisive critical reaction.
His career saw him work with some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed stars, and in 1996 he starred opposite Marlon Brando in the disastrous The Island of Dr. Moreau. Kilmer was prone to arguments and conflict on set, and this only furthered his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most difficult stars.
In fact, when Kilmer was acting, he sometimes got so invested in a character that those he worked with felt like they didn’t even know the real him. This was the case with Tombstone, which saw him play Doc Holliday to widespread acclaim. In fact, many believe that Kilmer was robbed of an Oscar nomination for his performance, which is considered one of his best.
It’s a role that he was unable to shake, simply because people seemed to love it so much. Playing the real life gambling killer – who was also a dentist – Kilmer starred opposite Kurt Russell, who played one of his associates Wyatt Earp. Complex and incredibly skilled with his gun, Kilmer brought Doc Holliday to life perfectly, and as a result, he heard his catchphrases thrown back at him by fans over 30 years later.
Talking to The Guardian in 2017, he admitted that he paints images of Doc Holliday frequently. “I’m not one for looking back but I can’t go through an airport without someone saying ‘I’m your huckleberry.’ It’s just part of my life.”
He added, “When I paint Doc Holiday, I’m not thinking about the real character or what I created out of him, but more just using the elements as a jumping off point, like the frenzy of the violence in his life. A lot of what I’m exploring is the exact opposite of relating to the character or any memory of him. It’s kind of like acting: you don’t try to be the character, you are.”
Kilmer even found a Doc Holliday fan in Bob Dylan, who the actor once invited to his house. Meeting him for the first time, Kilmer recalled (via KCRW), “He shows up and sits down, and he wants to talk about Tombstone.” In that moment, the actor found that he simply couldn’t, later regretting the fact that he “turned him down.” The actor admitted, “I felt like an idiot afterwards, well, yeah I could have said a few lines. They’re fun lines too, like people still ask me to say lines and now I’ll tell any schmo in the airport, I’ll say ‘I’m your huckleberry,’ but I wouldn’t say it Bob Dylan!”
Evidently, even people as famous as Dylan just wanted to hear Kilmer say his iconic line. Kilmer made it up to his folk hero, though. “I felt so bad about it. So what I did was, I recorded ‘It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding’ but as Doc Holliday and I put in all of the big lines from the movie into the song and made him a little tape.”
