Actor Val Kilmer has given some brilliant performances over the years, coming through in the mid-1980s with efforts as Iceman in Top Gun, then going on to star in the likes of Heat with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and in the lead role in Joel Schumacher’s Batman. But few of the Californian actor’s roles are as iconic as his portrayal of The Doors singer Jim Morrison.
Kilmer went to great and even excessive lengths to nail his role as the legendary singer. He hadn’t listened to much of The Doors before taking the job, other than a few of their big hits, so he made sure to learn as many as 50 songs from their back catalogue and even sang in the big concert scenes.
Commenting in a Reddit post, Kilmer once replied to a fan who said that they actually thought Morrison was on screen in Stone’s film rather than Kilmer just portraying him. The actor said: “It still boggles me to this day to see people with a tattoo of me playing him and not knowing it isn’t Jim. Happens more than you think.”
Kilmer had also discussed at length his Morrison performance with David Letterman. Of Morrison’s alluring character, he said: “He was an extraordinary guy. It was very fun to get to jump on people and get paid for it, which he did. And also, he could get into a very serious discussion about God or vomit on you. Musicians, as you know, are very strange.”
As for the preparations Kilmer took, he noted the original period of getting to know Morrison‘s poetry and The Doors’ songs. “Getting into the music was a lot of fun,” he said. “I wasn’t familiar with a lot of it that wasn’t on the radio, so that’s what I did in preparation. Mainly, just learn all of the songs.”
There were times, though, when Kilmer went too far with his whole Morrison thing, especially when it came to a form of method acting. There was a memo on set from Kilmer that asked for the cast and crew to only refer to him as Jim Morrison, which drew a fair share of glares. It transpired that, apparently, Kilmer had only meant for the memo to be seen by “his people”, not the entire production.
Still, there was the sense of the actor perhaps taking Morrison a bit too far, although perhaps this was at the suggestion of Oliver Stone. To Letterman, Kilmer explained, “Oliver Stone likes to get in the mood of whatever the scene is, so when he started degenerating, that’s what it was about. I told him not to clean my clothes, for example, to get that unwashed hardcore feeling of rock and roll.” Sounds pretty gross.