When Top Gun: Maverick began to take shape, its protagonist had one goal: Val Kilmer had to return. "We all wanted him to come back, but Tom was very convinced: if he was going to make another Top Gun, Val had to be in it," producer Jerry Bruckheimer stated in 2021. That was the impossible sequel... until artificial intelligence made it possible.
But let's go back. Let's go back 36 years to Val Kilmer's last return to the big screen, when his voice still had many stories to tell and his partnership with Tom Cruise was about to dominate the box office.
"There were two sides, mine and Tom's. While he was focused on becoming the greatest hero in movie history, we were enjoying the night in San Diego. One day we got stuck at an intersection where all the traffic lights were red. I turned and burned rubber, making a perfect circle, showing off. Until a police car approached, and the officer looked at me and said, 'Seriously?'" the actor recalled in his memoir I'm Your Huckleberry, published in April 2020. "I stood firm and ordered my drunk companions with my most authoritative Iceman voice to sit up straight and let me speak. Since I hadn't been drinking, I could rely on my talent as an actor."
The anecdote reveals a trait that Val Kilmer himself regretted not tempering at the end of his life: arrogance. "I only regret the jealousy I sometimes suffered from. And the envy. I understand that you can envy with humility, but it's very difficult. I couldn't do it," the actor revealed in an interview with EL MUNDO in May 2022, after his penultimate return to the screen. This time, to the small screen. The documentary Val, which premiered at Cannes in July 2021, was, in its own way, the legacy of an actor whose voice was taken by illness.
Val Kilmer, in Top Gun: Maverick.PARAMOUNT PICTURES
How could Tom Iceman Kazansky return, that authoritative voice, that off-the-record malice? How could Tom Cruise stage one last time one of the most iconic rivalries in movie history? The answer lay in simplicity: turning the actor's story into the character's story, at least in terms of communication.
In the film, Iceman is an admiral and commander of the US Pacific Fleet, and he comes to Maverick's rescue when it seems like he is about to be expelled from the Navy forever due to his constant challenges to authority. After several written messages and a photo that ignites anticipation in the impatient viewer, comes the big scene, the one that justifies the remake, the one that brings back the two great American heroes to the screen face to face. The one that merges them in a hug.
"I was very moved the first time I saw it. Nearly 40 years is a long time for a reunion. We laughed all day. Tom is great, and it was surprisingly fun," stated Val Kilmer after the movie was released. The question of who delivered the brief closing statement in the scene, with a hoarse voice, remained unanswered, although the film's producers denied any technological intervention following rumors of AI-based dubbing.
The idea was not far-fetched. In 2021, Val Kilmer announced a collaboration with the British startupSonantic to recreate his voice with the help of AI. The actor provided hundreds of hours of archival material with his voice to train the machine. "In the end, we generated over 40 different voice models and selected the best one, the highest quality and most expressive," stated John Flynn, Sonantic's CTO and co-founder, to Forbes.
"As human beings, the ability to communicate is fundamental to our existence, and the side effects of throat cancer have made it difficult for me to be understood. The opportunity to narrate my story, with an authentic and familiar voice, is an incredibly special gift," stated Kilmer. Neither of them has ever referenced his voice in Joseph Kosinski's film.
"My favorite moment was a little joke where I gave Tom an extremely expensive bottle of champagne, but I placed it in the middle of a giant field and made him follow clues like a 'treasure hunt' to find it," Val Kilmer recalled in his memoirs of that legendary mid-80s shoot, where, as on screen, the rivalry between the leads turned into unbreakable friendship. "I hid behind a stand and watched him load the giant box onto his motorcycle. He never thanked me in true Iceman style. I thought it would break the ice, but I guess the ice wasn't that bad."
With or without the help of technology, Val Kilmer was able, in his own way, to bid farewell with his own voice to a life dedicated to cinema.