Val Kilmer Begged To Be in TOP GUN: MAVERICK and He Shares a Prank He Played on Tom Cruise

Val Kilmer has already been confirmed to appear in Top Gun: Maverick. We haven’t seen any footage or photos of him yet, but he’s in the movie! He wasn’t originally supposed to be in the movie, though. He admitted in a new memoir he wrote titled "I'm Your Huckleberry," that he had to beg and plead his case to Tom Cruise and the producers to let him in, and he managed to change their minds. He wrote:

"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."

I couldn’t be happier and more excited that Kilmer is going to be in Top Gun: Maverick! Seeing Maverick and Ice reunite after all these years is going to be great! But, Kilmer initially didn’t want the role in the original film. He explained that he didn't put much effort into his audition, thinking that they would pass on him, but he still landed the role.

"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."

Well, in the end, everything worked out for the best because he was great in the film! Kilmer also recalled the time he pulled a prank on Cruise while making the original Top Gun movie. The prank involved a nice gift from Kilmer, but he didn’t make it easy for Cruise to get it:

“Tom is a comrade I respect and admire, though as creatures we hail from galaxies far, far away from one another. My favorite moment between us was a small prank in which I gave him an extremely expensive bottle of champagne but placed it in the middle of a giant field and made him follow scavenger-hunt-style clues to find it. I hid behind a bleacher and watched him lug the giant crate to his motorcycle. He never did thank me for the Iceman-style bit. I thought it would break the ice, but I guess the ice was just right.”

Ya gotta love Kilmer’s sense of humor. Anyway, Top Gun: Maverick is set to hit theaters on December 23rd.

Via: CB and The Daily Beast