In order to make it in Hollywood, most actors need to have a little bit of an edge that makes them seem at least a little bit dangerous. Thankfully for Val Kilmer, there always was something about his sometimes egotistical energy that made it seem like he was willing to fight if the right situation reared its ugly head.
Over the years, there have been many examples of stars who got into fistfights with their co-stars. For example, Tom Cruise once got into a brawl with one of his famous co-stars and George Clooney wound up in a fistfight with a famous director. Despite stories like those, the vast majority of major movies are filmed without even a hint of real violence. Amazingly enough, however, one director that Val Kilmer worked with pretty much gave his blessing to the famous actor and one of his well-known co-stars throwing blows at one another.
A Difficult Reputation
In 2015, the world learned that Val Kilmer had been gone to the hospital to seek treatment for a possible tumor. Unfortunately, Kilmer would go on to lose his ability to speak and eat naturally, undergo chemotherapy, and get two tracheotomies as he battled throat cancer. On the bright side, Kilmer has reported that he has been cancer-free for years now and he seems to have found a level of peace that eludes most people. However, none of that erases the fact that Kilmer had a pretty bad reputation throughout a large portion of his life.
During the mid-90s, Val Kilmer was at the height of his career coming off movies like The Doors, Tombstone, Batman Forever, and Heat among others. As a result, Kilmer wielded enough power in Hollywood at the time that virtually everyone wanted to work with him and the press needed access to him. Even though it could have Val against them at that time, in 1996 Entertainment Weekly published an article all about Kilmer’s rotten reputation. That is especially surprising since a lot of other actors have been called hard to work with so Kilmer’s behavior must have been especially bad to warrant an article like that.
In the aforementioned Entertainment Weekly article, the writer referenced the fact that Val Kilmer had a reputation for being difficult to work with, in general. However, the really amazing thing is that several movie industry personalities went on the record about their bad interactions with Kilmer. For example, Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher called Kilmer “childish and impossible”.
As the 2014 documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau chronicled, working with Val Kilmer could be incredibly hard. During the aforementioned Entertainment Weekly article, both of the men who were hired to direct 1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau talked about Kilmer’s behavior. First off, that film’s original director Richard Stanley is quoted as saying “Val would arrive, and an argument would happen”. After Stanley was fired from the film, he was replaced by John Frankenheimer whose quote about disliking Kilmer was even franker. “I don’t like Val Kilmer, I don’t like his work ethic, and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again.”
A Director’s Surprising Take
In the year 2000, the big-budget movie Red Planet was released with Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, Tom Sizemore, and Benjamin Bratt in the starring roles. Unfortunately for everyone involved with the film’s production, Red Planet would go on to flop at the box office and it was panned by the critics and moviegoers alike. As it turns out, the filmmaking process was far from successful as well considering all of the tension that permeated the set.
Just like Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore has had a rough reputation for years largely due to his serious addiction issues and outspoken nature. On the bright side, Kilmer and Sizemore had been friends off and on for years. Unfortunately for everyone involved in the production of Red Planet, things quickly went awry between Sizemore and Kilmer for a strange reason.
According to reports, partway through Red Planet’s production, Tom Sizemore asked to have his elliptical machine shipped to the film’s location and his wish was granted. Unfortunately, Val Kilmer learned that fact and he decided that Sizemore was getting special treatment which is something he couldn’t handle.
After an argument broke out between Kilmer and Sizemore over the elliptical machine and Val belittled Tom for being paid a lot less money than him to star in Red Planet, the writing was on the wall. After evidently resigning himself to the idea that a fight between Sizemore and Kilmer was inevitable, Red Planet’s director Antony Hoffman gave up on the idea of easing the tension.
Amazingly enough, Antony Hoffman reportedly told Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore not to punch each other in the face when they fought as that would hold up production. Ultimately, the fight happened and neither actor got punched in the face so Hoffman’s advice worked in that regard. Unfortunately, Hoffman has yet to direct another feature film that has been released since Red Planet’s failure although he has a project in pre-production according to IMDb.