Tony Scott’s 1986 navy recruitment film “Top Gun” was released in the middle of the Reagan administration: a time when the American military was being venerated in mainstream pop entertainment and sold as a badass, action-loving fighting force. The sadness and pain of the Vietnam War was being deliberately eschewed in favor of highly varnished machismo, and many movies depicted American soldiers as endlessly capable violence machines. It’s how we went from the downbeat and tragic “First Blood” to the chest-pounding jingoism of “Rambo: First Blood Part II” in just three years. “Top Gun” depicted the world’s coolest naval jet pilots as they trained to become the best, and took on a mysterious enemy military hailing from an unnamed nation.
To stress the pilots’ coolness, “Top Gun” starred the dazzling movie giant Tom Cruise as Peter “Maverick” Mitchell and the equally dazzling Val Kilmer as his rival, Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. (Pilots all need cute nicknames.) By the end of “Top Gun,” Maverick and Iceman, who previously hated each other, have become smiling, fist-bumping friends. Iceman even announces to Maverick that “you can be my wingman anytime.”
In 2022, Joseph Kosinski dusted off the Reagan-era premise and presented a brand-new legacy sequel called “Top Gun: Maverick,” a film infused with the same military bravado as the first. Cruise returned as a fifty-something Maverick, now tasked with training a new generation of hotshot pilots. Like with the first film, “Maverick” climaxes with a high-stakes jet mission into an unnamed country.
Cruise was game to return to the role of Maverick, but there was one condition. According to a 2021 interview in People Magazine with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Cruise — who produces and had a great deal of creative control over his movies — demanded that Val Kilmer also return to reprise his role of Iceman.
The Iceman returneth
Kilmer stepped away from acting in 2015 because of a battle with throat cancer. Kilmer, it would later be revealed, had undergone chemotherapy and required a tracheotomy. These days he has trouble breathing, has no voice, and communicates through an electronic voice box. A lot of Kilmer’s health issues were detailed in the rather excellent autobiographical documentary “Val” from 2021.
Cruise knew about Kilmer’s health issues, but still wanted him involved in “Top Gun: Maverick.” There was no reason, after all, that Iceman couldn’t have undergone the same procedures as Kilmer did. When Kilmer finally appears on-screen, he communicates to Maverick via a keyboard. He delivers a line of dialogue in his own voice, but it is raspy. Kilmer, it should be noted immediately, lost none of his talent or on screen charm, and delivers an excellent performance, even if he ultimately only had a few minutes of screentime.
Bruckheimer recalled speaking with Cruise about making “Top: Gun Maverick,” and the producer recalled Cruise’s insisted. Bruckheimer said:
“[Cruise] said, ‘We have to have Val, we have to have him back. We have to have him in the film.’ […] And he was the driving force. We all wanted him, but Tom was really adamant that if he’s going to make another ‘Top Gun,’ Val had to be in it. […] [Kilmer is] such a fine actor, and he’s such a good individual. We had such a good time on the first one and wanted to bring some of the gang back together again.”
Bruckheimer noted that both Cruise and Kilmer became very emotional when they saw each other on set again. They could now work together again after so many years apart and surviving their respective personal dramas. For them, the nostalgia was healing.
Val Kilmer ‘ain’t too proud to beg’
The same article in People also got Kilmer’s perspective on the matter with a quote from the actor’s 2021 autobiography, “I’m Your Huckleberry.” It seems that Kilmer, without speaking to Cruise, knew that a sequel to “Top Gun” was in the works, and that he very much wanted to participate. Kilmer kept a close eye on the production, hoping to receive a phone call from Paramount, asking him to return as Iceman. Eventually, Kilmer says he was the one to reach out. As the actor wrote:
“[Cruise] was calling it ‘Top Gun: Maverick.’ Well, Tom was Maverick, but Maverick’s nemesis was Iceman. The two went together like salt and pepper. […] It didn’t matter that the producers didn’t contact me. As the Temptations sang in the heyday of Motown soul, ‘ain’t too proud to beg.'”
So Cruise said he wouldn’t be in “Top Gun: Maverick” without Kilmer, and Kilmer really wanted to be in “Top Gun: Maverick.” Bruckheimer, it seems, didn’t have a very complicated decision to make. Kilmer was hired, he had a great, emotional scene with Cruise, and he turned in a great performance, despite his health maladies. “Top Gun: Maverick” was a massive hit, grossing almost $1.5 billion worldwide, and netting six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. It’s the highest-grossing film of Tom Cruise’s career
“Maverick” came at a time when theaters were still feeling the bleak effects of COVID-19, and many were unsure if major blockbusters would still even be possible in a post-pandemic landscape. That audiences were ready to gather in droves to see a rousing, simple, crowd-pleasing blockbuster was proof enough that movies were back, baby. “Maverick” felt important at the time.
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