Val Kilmer is a remarkable actor whose brilliant performances have seamlessly combined physicality and intellect; a chameleon-like performer who has inhabited a wide range of roles so completely that he is virtually unrecognizable from film to film; an actor with, some would say, an under-appreciated talent.
He has been described as devastatingly handsome, lush-lipped and so perfect looking that reason flees, leaving you to think ‘So this is what God intended’. Mim Udovitch, writing for Harper’s Bazaar in 1995, elaborated on Val’s physical appeal, “In person, Kilmer is a gorgeous human being in a way that filmed representations only begin to indicate; he has beautiful hands, he has a beautiful mouth, he has a beautiful voice . . . Not to put too fine a point on it, but he is a major, major, major fox.” Asked to sum up his Batman Forever co-star in one sentence, Jim Carrey has been quoted as saying, “The man! The hair! The lips!”
He has been called an “old spirit” and is said to possess a wry, dry sense of humor, great charm, and intense concentration. He has been described as anything but easy to figure, sarcastic and friendly, sincerely grounded and almost calculatedly off-center, someone who studies each question and, when formulating answers, is very deliberate in order to make himself completely clear. His smile is said to be as radiant as if it comes from a land of distant, unimaginable beings. Everything we’ve read, heard and seen about this enigmatic actor leads us to ask: