![\"Val](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Val-Kilmer-2011-Actor-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n
Thu 9 October 2025 1:30, UK <\/p>\n
Across his fascinating career, Val Kilmer<\/a> played some truly exceptional characters. <\/p>\n He\u2019s one of the few men to have embodied Bruce Wayne in live action, playing the \u201cCaped Crusader\u201d in Batman Forever. His surprise appearance as Tom \u2018Iceman\u2019 Kazansky was an unexpected emotional highlight of Top Gun: Maverick, drawing on not only the first film, but also Kilmer\u2019s own troubled history.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kilmer always had a knack for portraying real people. His brilliant turn as Jim Morrison<\/a> in Oliver Stone\u2019s The Doors is still considered one of the best performances never to bag an Oscar. He also played gunslinger Doc Holliday in the underrated western Tombstone and even voiced Moses in the DreamWorks animated gem The Prince of Egypt. But if you\u2019re after his personal favourite portrayal of a historical figure, you\u2019ll have to look beyond the big screen.<\/p>\n In 2012, the former pin-up starred in a one-man show he had written about the life and times of Mark Twain. Known for creating the classic American characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain was also a top-notch humorist, spouting many famous quotes and observations that have since passed into common rhetoric. He\u2019s also had about a billion other quotes attributed to him, to the point where, if you believe the Internet, he and Oscar Wilde coined just about every famous phrase ever spoken. <\/p>\n Citizen Twain, as it was called, began as a film project Kilmer had been working on for almost a decade prior. That level of dedication takes real passion. As the star explained to Grigware<\/a>, finally getting to step into Twain\u2019s shoes was very much worth the wait.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll tell you very honestly it\u2019s so gratifying to play a genius and have it be received so warmly, because his mind is so unique and I would say his love, it\u2019s almost like an overwhelming love of America,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Adding, \u201cHe loves everybody, the lowliest river rat and the laziest maid back in the kitchen\u2026 he was at Andrew Carnegie\u2019s mansion. He remembered everybody\u2019s name and whoever had a great story, whoever needed help, he was really our writer, the whole country\u2019s writer\u2026 and it\u2019s not me trying to sell you, to sell tickets to the play. It\u2019s who he is; it\u2019s very real.\u201d<\/p>\n The one-man show played in Los Angeles\u2019 Masonic Lodge in 2012. A version was filmed and later released as Cinema Twain, which also served as Kilmer\u2019s directorial debut. Sadly, the health issues that would eventually cost Kilmer the ability to speak forced him to cancel the show in 2014, the year that marked a significant downturn in his ability to perform. He did get the chance to play Twain on screen in the 2014 film Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, which hopefully brought him some comfort.<\/p>\n