There are many things I respect about Tom Cruise, the actor, but close to the top is how well he treats the people he's worked with in the past. When Top Gun: Maverick came out, there was no part of me that believed Val Kilmer would be in the movie, given his cancer struggles at the time. But there he was, in one of the most pivotal scenes in the movie. Cruise recently opened up to Sight and Sound on his relationship with the late Kilmer, and their work together on that movie and its predecessor. Cruise said, "First of all, I felt so grateful that he decided to make the film. We did a lot to get him in the movie. Originally, he just didn't want to make the movie: 'I don't want to be a supporting, I want to star in films.' I was calling his agent, and [director] Tony Scott was hunting him down and meeting in an elevator with Val, and he was like, 'Please, Val, please.'"Of course, Kilmer was in that movie and crushed his scenes. It was also an amazing look at the characters' relationships with one another, which felt very inspiring and added depth to the movie. In the original Top Gun, the two guys play rivals. Cruise said of Kilmer's first performance, "What I love about what he did and how he played it [was] he just knew that tone to hit." Cruise continued, "He had to play it so you wanted...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Yesterday