Val Kilmer’s favourite Tom Cruise performance: “He seems to enjoy everything”
The late, great Val Kilmer worked with just about every actor worth their salt.
His legendary co-stars ranged from playing fiddle to police and thief duo Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Heat to donning cowboy hats with Kurt Russell and Sam Elliott in Tombstone to playing Jim Morrison alongside Kyle MacLachlan and Meg Ryan in The Doors. Even the disastrous The Island of Dr Moreau gave him the chance to pick the sci-fi mantle with Marlon Brando in one of his final films.
One of his biggest and most memorable co-stars was, of course, Tom Cruise. The diminutive man of action starred alongside Kilmer in Top Gun, when they played rival fighter pilots at the Navy school of the same name. Four decades later, they returned to the roles of Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell and Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky for Top Gun: Maverick. The pair shared an emotional scene together that drew heavily on their real lives. It turned out to be Kilmer’s final appearance in a narrative film.
Cruise was the subject of an interview Kilmer gave to Total Film in 2004. He came up in a discussion about the latter’s decision to step away from the role of Bruce Wayne following 1994’s Batman Forever. He used his old co-star as an example of famous actors who, despite having the opportunity to just continue playing the same characters over and over again, decide to do something else.
“Even Tom Cruise, who’s exclusively been in large movies since he became famous, got to a place where he was not satisfied, though we haven’t really talked about it, and took that role in Magnolia,” he said. He highlighted his preference for the masterful collage film, adding, “I like that more than his Oscar-nominated role in Born on the Fourth of July. You have to do things to recharge your batteries. And I picked Cruise to mention because he seems to enjoy everything, and a lot of the time, these larger movies are more like work. It’s just his nature, but it’s hard to do some of these movies. They’re not really about acting.”
From the mind of Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia is a sprawling, three-hour epic about a series of loosely connected people living their lives in the San Fernando Valley. Cruise, who was one of the first to pay tribute to Kilmer following his death in 2025, plays Frank Mackey, a motivational speaker who ends up reconnecting with his long-lost father. He wasn’t quite strapped to the action hero conveyor belt just yet, but this performance opened a lot of people’s eyes to his ability as a dramatic actor, a reminder also released the same year as Eyes Wide Shut. He was nominated for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at the Oscars as a result.
Kilmer landed the role of the ‘Dark Knight’ following Michael Keaton’s decision not to return for a third stint in the Batsuit. Batman Forever, which pits the hero against Jim Carrey’s Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face, was a massive financial success. However, Kilmer felt that the character just wasn’t right for him. He decided to pursue more complex roles elsewhere, handing the part over to George Clooney and his rubber nubs. The less said about that, the better.
Magnolia is still held up as one of Cruise’s best films and an example of what he could have done had his career taken a different turn. Kilmer’s observation that actors can get tired of being dumped in a mould is spot on. Thank heavens for the roles that let them flex their creative muscles and dazzle in ways we didn’t know were possible.
