“It was like no time had passed at all,” says Kilmer, via email.
“I didn’t want the part,” Kilmer recalled in his 2020 memoirI’m Your Huckleberry.
“I didn’t care about the film.
Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.Paramount Pictures
The story didn’t interest me.
“Even after shooting we would laugh and dance the night away!”
“Actors thrive on workvirtually any work,” he wrote in the book.
Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise in Top Gun.Everett Collection
That was my gut reaction when I learned Tom Cruise wanted a follow-up toTop Gun.
He was calling itTop Gun: Maverick.
Well, Tom was Maverick but Maverick’s nemesis was Iceman.
The two went together like salt and pepper.
It didn’t matter that the producers didn’t contact me.
As the Temptations sang in the heyday of Motown soul, ‘ain’t too proud to beg.’
I’d not only hit up the producers but create heartrending scenes with Iceman.'”
According to Kosinski, it was always the plan for Kilmer to play Iceman inTop Gun: Maverick.
“You had to figure out a way to bring Iceman in.
We met with Val.
He had the idea of how to integrate Iceman in a really authentic way.”
Regardless, when Kilmer was offered the role in the film, he was happy to accept.
“Tom called me,” he says now.
“I said yes immediately.”
Kosinski explains that shooting the reunion between Maverick and Iceman was an emotional affair.
“I wasn’t sure how it was going to work.
And he was right.
It’s a really beautiful scene.
We shot it in Los Angeles in a really beautiful house up on a park.
For his part, Kilmer remembers the shoot as a happy one.
“We blew a lot of takes laughing so much,” he says.
“It was really fun… “I’m dreaming of makingFrankensteinwith Werner Herzog!!”
Watch the trailer forTop Gun: Maverickbelow.
