' ' Cinema Romantico: He'll Be Your Huckleberry

Friday, February 06, 2009

He'll Be Your Huckleberry

It was brought to Cinema Romantico's attention today that veteran and eccentric actor Val Kilmer, perhaps best known for playing Tom "Iceman" Kazanski, Tom Cruise's foil in the box office smash "Top Gun", is contemplating a run for the governorship of his home state of New Mexico in 2010.

This is an absolutely fantastic idea and one that this blog strongly supports. In fact, as I write this I'm pondering a move to Santa Fe - not Albequerque, because Santa Fe is the capital and, damn it, I want to be no more than a heartbeat away from the governor's mansion if Nick Rivers is residing there.

I can only assume there may be some people who find this notion odd, unappealing or just generally frightening but that's why I'm here today to lend a helping hand to Mr. Kilmer's potential candidacy. I offer up the following exchange between Mr. Kilmer and writer Chuck Klosterman from an article penned by Klosterman in the July 2005 issue of Esquire Magazine. Upon finishing it, if you still don't think Val Kilmer was meant to speak for an entire state, well, you and I probably aren't meant to share a cab.

Go, Val! We're behind you 110% percent!

Chuck Klosterman: "You mean you think you literally had the same experience as Doc Holliday?"

Val Kilmer: "Oh, sure. It's not like I believed that I shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone's life."

Klosterman: "You understand how it feels to shoot someone as much as a person who has actually committed a murder?"

Kilmer: "I understand it more. It's an actor's job. A guy who's lived through the horror of Vietnam has not spent his life preparing his mind for it. He's some punk. Most guys were borderline criminal or poor, and that's why they got sent to Vietnam. It was all the poor, wretched kids who got beat up by their dads, guys who didn't get on the football team, couldn't finagle a scholarship. They didn't have the emotional equipment to handle that experience. But this is what an actor trains to do. I can more effectively represent that kid in Vietnam than a guy who was there."

Klosterman: "I don't question that you can more effectively represent it, but that's not the same thing. If you were talking to someone who's in prison for murder and the guy said, 'Man, it really f---s you up to kill another person,' do you think you could reasonably say, 'I completely know what you're talking about?'"

Kilmer: "Oh yeah. I'd know what he's talking about."

Klosterman: "Let's say someone made a movie about you--Val Kilmer--and they cast Jude Law in the lead role. By your logic, wouldn't this mean that Jude Law--if he succeeded in the role--would therefore understand what it means to be Val Kilmer more than you do?"

Kilmer: "No, because I'm an actor. The people in those other circumstances don't have the self-knowledge."

Klosterman: "Well, what if it were a movie about your young life, before you became an actor?"

Kilmer: "I guess I'd have to say yes."

Klosterman: "Okay, so let's assume you had been given the lead role in 'The Passion of the Christ'. Would you understand the feeling of being crucified as much as Jesus?"

Kilmer: "Well, I just played Moses [in a theatrical version of 'The Ten Commandments']. Of course."

Klosterman: "So you understand the experience of being Moses? Maybe I'm just taking your words too literally."

Kilmer: "No, I don't think so. That's what acting is."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm glad he's doing an awful miniseries on TV right now. What a great prelude to governorship in a state most people don't know exists. Anyway, New Mexicans dig novelty...so...you never know.