Poster for Real Genius
Jesse Pasternack looks back at the comedic work Val Kilmer brought to the screen in the ’80s and how it precipitated his later movie stardom.
Val Kilmer was one of the most beloved American actors of the second half of the 20th century. Over the course of his decades-long career, he received acclaim for his work in action films and dramas like Top Gun (1986), The Doors (1991), and Heat (1995). But he also excelled in comedy, especially in the early days of his career. It was in those first comedic roles that he demonstrated the charisma, physicality, and commitment which he would put to good use in his more famous parts.
The first two films Kilmer made were the light comedies Top Secret! (1984) and Real Genius (1985). They also both feature exposition about his lead characters Nick Rivers and Chris Knight which sets them up as being larger than life. An early montage in Top Secret! establishes Rivers as a rock star who has the four most popular songs in the country. A conversation between science prodigy Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarret) and Jerry Hathaway (William Atherton) establishes that Knight is “a legend in the National Physics Club” and someone Taylor admires. By the time Kilmer shows up, we’re expecting to see performances of exceptional charisma, and he delivered both times.
Val Kilmer in Top Secret!
You can’t watch Kilmer in these two early films and not like him. He has great charm which seems to light up the screen and make you want to see whatever he does next. That ability to play characters who are regarded by others as iconic would serve him well when he would play parts such as Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993) or Batman in Batman Forever. In addition, the way Kilmer uses different types of charisma (laidback for the confident Rivers and hyperactive for Knight) was an early hint that he had a great range which he would explore over the course of his career.
Kilmer’s performances in both of these films feature a lot of great physical acting work, especially in Top Secret! A key part of his performance is that he takes the film’s silliness very seriously. My favorite example is a scene where dances with the character’s love interest, Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge). The choreography gets increasingly strange, but Kilmer does not make any silly faces while he is dancing. Instead, he moves as simply and confidently as if he is doing something like making toast or going for a walk. It makes the scene much funnier than if he had mugged for the camera. His physicality in minor moments like that or the way he seems to confidently glide or bounce through almost every scene in Real Genius shows that there was no aspect of acting too small for him to not master.
Val Kilmer in Real Genius
But the greatest thing about Kilmer’s performances in these early comedies is his commitment to doing justice to these characters. The Julliard-trained Kilmer doesn’t seem to think that these films — one a broad comedy and the other a light teen movie — are beneath him. He is funny when the parts require him to be, but he doesn’t treat them as joke machines. Instead, Kilmer makes his characters feel like people. He finds the vulnerability in long monologues Rivers and Knight have about their pasts which make them feel more complex and interesting. More than anything, it was that commitment to achieving excellence in every part which helped make him an icon.
Kilmer would go on to act in many films that were not comedies. But all of his most beloved performances involve skills that he honed in these early films. It’s a shame that he did not get to do more comedies. But the ones that he did make are a vivid testament to the talent and technique which led him to create a distinctive and beloved body of work as an actor.
Real Genius will be screened at IU Cinema on October 16 as part of the Val Kilmer series The One and Only Huckleberry.