The moment Val Kilmer had a star-struck spat with Bob Dylan: “Like a crazy fan”
Hollywood star of Top Gun and Tombstone, Val Kilmer, is a big Bob Dylan fan. Once, when he heard that Dylan was in New York at the same time as him, he decided to see if he could grab some face time with the legendary songwriter. He recalled, “So Bob Dylan loves Tombstone, it turns out. I found out he was in New York, so I called my friend and said, ‘You know, I’d love to meet him. Is there any chance?’ and he says, ‘I don’t know, I’ll find out.’ And the next call I got—I thought it was going to be my friend, but it wasn’t. It was Bob.”
Kilmer was taken aback. “I was real excited, like a crazy fan, like a child; it was so great. Basically, it was like nothing. It was like we were old friends, like, ‘You want to come over?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah.’” But the surreal nature of the moment had Kilmer second-guessing himself. “So he hangs up the phone. I was newly married, and we had a baby, and I went in and said, ‘I think Bob Dylan’s coming over … I’m not sure. It could be a hoax.’”
It wasn’t. Dylan showed up, took a seat, and was eager to talk about Tombstone. But Kilmer, strangely, couldn’t bring himself to entertain the idea. “He shows up and sits down, and he wants to talk about Tombstone, but I just can’t, you know, nor can I talk about any of his stuff. Eventually, he says, ‘Ain’t you going to say anything about that movie?’ and I said, ‘Do some Blowin’ in the Wind and I’ll…’ That’s what I said to him. Basically, I said no. I get like that sometimes.”
As the moment unfolded, Kilmer realised how absurd it was. He’d just turned down Bob Dylan. “I thought, no one turns this guy down. What was I thinking?” Even in the moment, he regretted his stubbornness. “Anyway, I felt like an idiot afterwards—like, yeah, I could have said a few lines. They’re fun lines too. People still ask me to say them, and now I’ll tell any schmo in the airport, I’ll say, ‘I’m your huckleberry,’ but I wouldn’t say it to Bob Dylan.”
But life often offers second chances, and Kilmer had an idea. “I felt so bad about it. I was like, how could I make it up to him? So what I did was, I recorded It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) but as Doc Holliday [from Tombstone], and I put in all of the big lines from the movie into the song and made him a little tape.”
He was proud of his effort, but as with all things Dylan, it was hard to know if the message was received. “I don’t even know if he listened to it,” Kilmer admitted with a laugh. “I mean, I handed it off to someone who was supposed to get it to him, but you never know with Bob. He might have tossed it in a drawer, or maybe he plays it every morning—who knows?”
Despite the uncertainty, Kilmer felt that his attempt at redemption was enough. “At the very least, I know I tried. What do you even give Bob Dylan? He’s already got everything—awards, history, an entire culture hanging on his every word. So I figured I’d give him something truly unique. Nobody else was ever going to give him It’s Alright, Ma in full Doc Holliday mode, that’s for sure.”
Looking back, Kilmer saw the whole experience as one of the most surreal moments of his life. “It’s funny because you spend years idolising someone, and then when you finally meet them, it never goes the way you expect. But that’s probably why Dylan is Dylan. He exists on his own terms.”
Even with the awkwardness of their meeting, Kilmer had no regrets. “I mean, Bob Dylan called me. That alone is enough of a story for me. Even if I didn’t say ‘I’m your huckleberry’ when I had the chance.”
Listen to Bob Dylan’s ‘It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding’, which Kilmer used for his apology tape, below.
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