Kilmer attended Hollywood’s Professional’s School and Chatsworth High School (with Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham) before studying drama at Julliard while still in his teens.  At that time, he was the youngest student ever accepted into Julliard’s drama program.  His professional acting career began on the stage, where occasionally he still returns and has added his name to the long list of famous actors who have been Hamlet.  Although he’s done his share of television, Val is most recognizable for his astonishingly convincing film roles.  Known for his meticulous detail while preparing a character, and complete dedication to his craft, Val either drives his fellow thespians crazy or they fall in love with him.  What you may not know is that Val is spiritual and he has a great sense of humour which anyone who saw him host Saturday Night Live in 2000 or caught him on The Daily Show or The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson could attest to. 

"It's probably fair to say I have taken myself too seriously on some jobs. I'm sure I'm more guilty of being difficult than I'd like to remember. I don't regret my desires; I've regretted the way I would communicate my desires. Maybe I've lost a job because of some rumor, I doubt it. But nobody good that I've worked with has ever said anything negative about me, because we've never had a negative experience. By good, I mean directors who do their homework, people that are passionate, crazy, never sleep, and do like I do and just go after it."

"Interesting characters are troubled characters. The only problem I've had in my business is very few people - unfortunately, very vocal - confusing the difficult role that I play with me.  I play these guys, but I'm not like them.  I've been accused of being difficult to work with.  But that's like saying the football player's out of breath 'cause when he comes off the field having caught a hundred-yard pass he shouldn't be out of breath.  He's not out of shape; he just went and did his job."

The six foot, dark blond, steely blue-eyed Val’s film debut was in 1984’s “Top Secret”, a spoof in which he played blond rock star Nick Rivers, followed by the equally silly “Real Genius” in 1985.  In 1986, Val appeared as the Ice Man in the hugely popular “Top Gun”, a film that he didn’t want to do but was forced to because of contractual obligations.  The movie that made me sit up and take notice of Kilmer was 1988’s fabulous fantasy, “Willow”, in which he starred as main character Madmartigan.  It’s a classic, must-have for every family’s film library.  Val married British actress Joanne Whalley (1988-1996) whom he met while filming “Willow” and they went on to co-star together in 1989’s “Kill Me Again” with Michael Madsen (who also appeared in “Tombstone”) and “Played” in 2006.  Unfortunately, that union didn’t last and Kilmer, whose parents divorced when he was 9, found out about his own divorce while watching CNN in a hotel room.  Val and Joanne have two children: 18 year old Mercedes and 12 year old Jack.  Val is extremely private about his personal life and although he has dated many different actresses over the years including Elisabeth Shue, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ellen Barkin, Cher, Drew Barrymore, Cindy Crawford and Daryl Hannah, he remains single and flies below the radar.  There isn’t even a website dedicated to him as yet although one is promised to be on the way at www.valkilmer.com. 

Val has lived on a ranch in New Mexico surrounded by rivers and canyons and occupied by an entourage of animals, including buffalo, since 1983.  He enjoys ranch life, even though the work is grueling, and loves to ride, hunt and fish.  Actively involved with The Wildlife Center of New Mexico, Val assists in rescuing animals and releasing them on his ranch.

"I think spiritual perception comes from natural and healthy relationship to the land and I've had that. I get an easy, automatic sense of myself in nature, a wholeness and I feel nowhere else. I think people should live where praying is most immediate. That's why I live in New Mexico. The physical terrain, the feeling, the environment and culture improve my life just by waking up there."
Val also enjoys traveling, scuba diving, is an avid musician and writes poetry (his second cousin is poet Joyce Kilmer), including a self-published book entitled My Eden After Burns (1987):

"Poetry is a very subjective and intimate expression. It's literally your heartbeat. Your rhythm. The song of your soul. It's superconcentrated. It's a dense piece of yourself."

Although Val is a Led Zeppelin fan and loves Rage Against The Machine, he is perhaps best known for his preternatural performance as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” (1991) for which, coincidentally, he did his own singing.  He was so exceptional in that movie (scorchingly sexy when called for and bearded and bloated when required) that members of The Doors had trouble distinguishing Kilmer’s voice from Morrison’s.  Director Oliver Stone called him Jim throughout filming because it helped Val stay in character.  He was also rumored to have worn the same leather pants throughout most of the production as well.  Val, in fact, has the distinction of playing two major real life rock idols as he was Elvis Presley in 1993’s “True Romance,” a part he filmed in just one day.

Kilmer gave another excellent performance in “Thunderheart” (1992) in which he played Native American FBI man Ray Levoi opposite Sam Shepard and Graham Greene.  1993 was a busy year as Val showcased roles in “The Real McCoy” co-starring Kim Basinger, “True Romance” (one of my favourite films of all time) and his brilliant interpretation of Doc Holliday opposite Kurt Russell’s Wyatt Earp in “Tombstone.”  1995 was equally busy, with Kilmer appearing in “Wings of Courage”, “Batman Forever” and the superb crime drama saga, “Heat”, directed by Michael Mann.  Val was the fifth actor to play Batman when he donned the famous rubber suit for Joel Schumacher and even though he didn’t get along with the director, Val enjoyed playing Gotham City’s finest.
"I've done an absurdly commercial cartoon and now I'm more likely to get hired for a job I couldn't get hired for before, because I hadn't done enough movies.  It's so rare when an actor gets hired because he's right for the role - it just doesn't figure into it."

The little seen “Dead Girl”, “The Island of Dr. Moreau” and “The Ghost and The Darkness” filled up 1996.  While working on “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” Val and co-star Marlon Brando reportedly so infuriated director John Frankenheimer that he vowed never to work with Kilmer again.  It was primarily this rumor that fanned the flames about Kilmer being difficult.  The nineties wrapped up with Val’s memorable turns as Simon Templar in “The Saint”, the blind Virg Adamson in “At First Sight” (a role that he found particularly challenging), the voice of Moses and God in the animated “The Prince of Egypt” and a smaller but pivotal part as Bob Henry in “Joe The King”, directed by his friend Frank Whaley.

Since the millennium, Val has represented Dutch expressionist painter, Willem DeKooning, beside Ed Harris in “Pollock”, astronaut Robby Gallagher in the sci-fi thriller “Red Planet”, drifter Danny Parker in the disturbingly superb “The Salton Sea”, and he co-starred with Christian Slater as FBI agent Mark Cornell in the disappointing “Hard Cash” (a.k.a. “Run for the Money”).  Kilmer seems to sprinkle his filmography with small parts such as his work in “Masked and Anonymous”, “The Missing”, “Stateside”, “Mindhunters”, “10th & Wolf”, “Alexander” and “Played”, and intersperses them with leading roles - “Blind Horizon”, “Spartan”, “Moscow Zero” and “Déjà Vu.”  Val was exceptional as hustler John Holmes in 2003’s “Wonderland” and refreshingly funny as Gay Perry in 2005’s “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” in which he became fast friends with co-star Robert Downey, Jr.  He played Moses for the second time in 2006’s “The Ten Commandments: The Musical” which was filmed live at the Kodiak Theatre in Hollywood.  I can’t wait to see that one!

With no less than five films wrapped and ready for release including “Have Dreams, Will Travel”, “Conspiracy”, the animated “Delgo”, “American Cowslip” and “Columbus Day”; one television mini-series, Larry McMurtry’s “Comanche Moon”; and another five movies in various stages of production, Val’s colourful career is destined to have diversity and longevity for many years to come.