R.I.P. Val
Val Kilmer, gone at age 65.
Mercurial as they come but still, a great talent. Looking back at his all-too-short acting career, he had some incredible performances. He seemed to have a talent for becoming the person he was portraying, a la Daniel Day-Lewis. Not a lot of actors seem to have that talent: John Wayne for example always came across as an actor playing John Wayne playing a part. But anyone who saw his performance in The Doors could see that. He WAS Jim Morrison. We don't know how close to the "original" his performance as Doc Holliday was in Tombstone, but I like to think that the real Doc Holliday, were he still alive, would have heartily approved of Morrison's performance.
Looking back, one of his best performances was the tongue-in-cheek deadpan role he played as a secret agent in Top Secret. Overloaded with college freshman - type humor, maybe, but still fun to watch. And who can forget Iceman in Top Gun, later reprised 30 years later as Admiral Kazansky in Top Gun - Maverick, in a role with very few words but played with a lot of emotion.
He left us too early. But he left us a lot.
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