The shocking moment in 1989 when Val Kilmer punched a co-star in the middle of an audition
Even at the best of times, Val Kilmer was known for being hot-headed, with an actor who auditioned for a role opposite him claiming that the late star punched her in the middle of rehearsing a scene.
It doesn’t sound unlike something he would do, if we’re being honest. Kilmer had a short fuse, and during his downtime on Red Planet, things got so bad between him and Tom Sizemore that they ended up brawling behind the scenes, on the condition they didn’t hit each other in the face to hold up shooting.
Enough filmmakers have had their run-ins with the Top Gun favourite over the years to suggest that he was a fucking nightmare to deal with, and Kilmer suggested as much himself, although he didn’t quite put it in the same terms as Joel Schumacher or Adam Marcus, who called him “the worst human being I’ve ever known.”
The one-time Batman also had a habit of adopting the method, and he was never more immersed in a character than he was playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors. His research was so exhaustive as to become obsessive, but when Caitlin O’Heaney was in the room to read for the part of Pamela, which was ultimately played by Meg Ryan, she got a whole lot more than she bargained for.
One of the scenes involved a furious argument between the two, with O’Heaney revealing that, unprompted, he struck her in the face. “When I got to the room, and Val Kilmer picked me up and shook me, throwing me down to the floor, Stone just stood there the whole time laughing,” she revealed.
All the director could say in response was, “That got kind of wild,” but O’Heaney was as taken aback as she was distraught, adding, “I went down to my car, and I cried for about 20 minutes.” She didn’t get the part, obviously, not that she’d have wanted it anyway, but the incident saw her seek legal recourse.
A month or so later, she filed a preliminary police report for battery, but the matter was resolved through a confidential settlement and a nondisclosure agreement, with O’Heaney sharing in 2017 that she was paid $24,500 by the production company, with the NDA absolving Stone and Kilmer of any wrongdoing, as well as forbidding her from discussing the incident, allegations, or settlement publicly.
Meanwhile, casting director Risa Bramon Garcia, who was in the room at the time, countered by saying it had been “blown out of proportion,” and she also suggested that since she wasn’t “somebody who takes this stuff lightly, I can tell the difference between something that’s abusive and a moment that got carried away.”
As for the fact that a settlement was paid and an NDA was signed? Garcia’s memory at the time was that it was easier to pay out and “not worth dragging this on,” Kilmer’s alleged blow was “all in the context of the work,” and O’Heaney’s response was “a very extreme reaction to a situation that, to me, was not extreme at all,” but since those two, Stone, and Kilmer were the only ones present, only they know the truth.
