The Sunday Read: ‘What Happened to Val Kilmer?’

周日报读:《瓦尔·基尔默怎么了?》

The Daily

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2025-04-06

53 分钟
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“The force of his will is the thing I remember about him,” says Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who wrote a profile of Val Kilmer for The New York Times Magazine in May 2020. “He was sure he was going to come back to his exact former self. ” The two met for an interview just as a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic seemed all but certain to happen. Mr. Kilmer, who was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and had undergone a tracheotomy, was still performing. Mr. Brodesser-Akner credits him with providing “the first whiff of overarching hope and positivity that I’d witnessed in I couldn’t remember how many months.” “What does somebody do when the thing that they are known for, which is being a superhero, which is being an action hero, which is being handsome, which is being this sort of picture of good health and vigor, what do you do next?” she said. “And a lot of people, they fade away. But that’s not how it went for Val. ” Mr. Kilmer, who played classic roles such as Batman and Iceman in “Top Gun,” died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 65.
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  • I had been trying to write a Val Kilmer story for years and he would never say yes to it.

  • And finally, he said yes.

  • I don't know why I was so lucky to have him say yes at that moment, but I know what he would say.

  • I know that he would say that it wasn't luck, that it was my faith.

  • These people, you write about them and you become associated with them forever.

  • And you don't even know what a privilege that's going to be years and years later.

  • I'm Taffy Brodas or Ackner and I'm a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine.

  • The actor Val Kilmer died on Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 65.

  • And for the Sunday read this week, we are once again airing the profile I wrote of Val in 2020 during a pandemic.

  • Everyone has a favorite Val Kilmer that feels very personal and specific to them.

  • In Top Gun, in Heat, in The Doors, in Batman Forever.

  • He was the kind of actor who was always running from his good looks, even as he greatly benefited from them.