“I thought it was so sophisticated”: the TV series Val Kilmer loved
When Val Kilmer first broke through in the early 1980s, there was a very distinct line drawn between actors who appeared on television, and those who made their names in the world of feature film.
It’s hard to imagine given the way so many of Hollywood’s biggest stars have willingly taken their talents to the small screen during the current ‘Golden Age’ that’s been going on for two decades, but in the past, a movie star wouldn’t be caught dead agreeing to star in a TV show.
It was pretty much a two-way street at the time, with performers who first gained attention on television always eying up the breakthrough role that would have their name in lights on the silver screen, while any established filmic thespian who found themselves plying their trade in the episodic realm was largely viewed a has-been.
Suffice to say, that isn’t the case anymore and hasn’t been in a long time, but Kilmer didn’t end up becoming one of the established Tinseltown figures who tried their hand at a TV show. The closest he came to a recurring gig was when he voiced KITT in the short-lived Knight Rider reboot that was cancelled after a single season in 2009, and even at that he went uncredited.
He did appear in two episodes of Jack Black-produced supernatural comedy series Ghost Girls and three instalments of star-studded miniseries The Spoils of Babylon, but it was clear that Kilmer didn’t find television to be an arena worth exploring to any significant extent.
That’s probably because by his own admission, he isn’t very interested in it at all. However, there was one short-lived but hugely influential sitcom spanning a mere two seasons and 14 episodes that caught his eye, leaving Kilmer to admit to The Guardian that he was caught off-guard by how much he enjoyed it.
“I don’t watch television, but I saw The Office by accident,” he said. “I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We’d do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I’m sitting there watching hours of it. He’s just so aggressive, Ricky Gervais. I can’t get enough.”
That’s high praise coming from somebody who claims they don’t even watch TV, but the antics of Gervais’ David Brent and the “Victorian love story” between Martin Freeman’s Tim Canterbury and Lucy Davis’ Dawn Tinsley – complete with a Joel Beckett’s Lee providing the spanner in the works – ended up leaving Kilmer completely captivated.
Not that the star has much experience of the environment having attended the prestigious Juilliard before embarking on a stellar stage and screen career, but The Office spoke to the Top Gun alum on a deeper level despite his complete lack of time spent working 9-to-5 behind a desk.
