Val Kilmer Begged Producers To Return For Tom Cruise’s ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Val Kilmer Top Gun Maverick Tom Cruise

Val Kilmer revealed that he begged producers to return to Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick as fellow ace pilot Iceman in the sequel.

With Top Gun: Maverick heading into theaters later this year, Val Kilmer revealed in his new memoir what it took to return as Iceman for the sequel opposite leading star Tom Cruise. In I’m Your Huckleberry, Kilmer explained that he originally didn’t want the part when he auditioned for the 1986 film. The star mentioned that when he was told he got the part, he felt deflated. But that didn’t stop him from being interested in returning for the sequel.

“I didn’t want the part, I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me. I showed up [to the audition] looking the fool, or the goon. I wore oversize gonky Australian shorts in nausea green. I read the lines indifferently. And yet, amazingly, I was told I had the part. I felt more deflated than inflated.”

The actor noted in the memoir that he begged the producers for Iceman’s return before also mentioning that his co-star was also happy to see the actor come back for the sequel. Although the star didn’t mention anything about the plot of Top Gun: Maverick, Kilmer explained that the reunion between the two was like nothing has changed.

“As the Temptations sang in the heydey of Motown soul, ‘ain’t too proud to beg,’ The producers went for it. Cruise went for it. Cruise couldn’t have been cooler. … Tom and I took up where we left off. The reunion felt great.”

Are you excited to see Top Gun: Maverick? Comment below and let us know!

Here is the official synopsis for Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick:

After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: “Rooster,” the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka “Goose.” Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski from a script written by Peter Craig, Justin Marks, Ashley Edward Miller, and Zack Stentz, Top Gun: Maverick stars Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, and Ed Harris.

Top Gun: Maverick will be released in theaters on December 23, 2020.

Source: Val Kilmer

Eammon Jacobs

Eammon Jacobs

British dork who can be found online raving about how good Tron: Legacy is.