In 2014, actor Val Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer and went public with his illness in 2017. Because of the various surgeries that impacted his throat, the actor’s voice has radically changed, and in fact, he has a difficult and even painful time talking. And now, because of that, Kilmer says he wants to tell his own story “more than ever.” Thanks to directors Ting Poo and Leo Scott, A24, and Amazon Studios, he’ll be telling it very soon in the new doc, “Val.”
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“I was the first guy I knew to own a video camera,” Val Kilmer says in the first trailer for the Cannes-bound doc, “Val.” “I have thousands of hours of videotapes and film reels that I have shot throughout my life.” In the trailer, Kilmer says he’s wanted to make a film about acting, “where you end, and the character begins.”
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Here’s the official synopsis from Cannes:
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For over 40 years, Val Kilmer, one of Hollywood’s most mercurial and/or misunderstood actors, has been documenting his own life and craft through film and video. He has amassed thousands of hours of footage, from 16mm home movies made with his brothers to time spent in iconic roles for blockbuster movies like Top Gun, The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman. This raw, wildly original, and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.
Kilmer will presumably make headlines this fall for the reprisal of his role as Iceman opposite Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick,” which Paramount debuts in the U.S. on November 19.
Directed by Ting Poo and Leo Scott and playing in the Cannes in the “Cannes Premiere”s section. A24 produced the film and Amazon Studios will be releasing it whenever the tech company decides on a date after Cannes. Watch the first teaser trailer below.
