Why Val Kilmer Only Played Batman Once — And What His Kids Remember From Set

The late actor, who died on Tuesday at the age of 65 from pneumonia, famously took on the role of both Bruce Wayne and the dark knight in 1995’s Batman Forever — which saw him going head to head against Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face and Jim Carrey as The Riddler.

While becoming Batman is a big deal for any actor, the experience wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for Kilmer, who opened up in his 2021 documentary “Val” about the realities of the role. Using a number of the actor’s home videos filmed throughout his entire career, the doc chronicled his childhood, rise to fame and subsequent roller coaster ride of a career. Since Kilmer himself was treated for throat cancer in 2014 and spoke through a tracheostomy tube at the time, his son Jack Kilmer narrated the entire film as his father.

His daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, was an associate producer on the film, with both of them speaking with TooFab at the time — before his death — about what it was like learning about his experience on set and having Batman as a dad.

“There was a line in the movie, that I really like, that’s like, ‘Every boy wants to be Batman, like they actually want to be him, but they don’t necessarily want to play him in the movie,'” Jack told TooFab in 2021. “I really wanted to be Batman as a child, but the actual, the reality of being on set is quite different.”

In the doc, Kilmer said he signed onto Batman Forever without even reading a script. But, once he got on set, “whatever boyish excitement I had going in was crushed by the reality of the Batsuit.” He explained that you can “barely move” in the costume, which also required other people’s help to get him to stand up and sit down.

“You also can’t hear anything and after a while, people stop talking to you. It’s very isolating,” he explains. “It was a struggle for me to get a performance past the suit … it was frustrating until I realized that my role was to show up and do what I was told to.”

Kilmer also said that costars Jones and Carrey had designed such “huge” performances for their characters of Two-Face and The Riddler that he was left thinking “it made no difference what I was doing.”

“Yes, every boy wants to be Batman. They actually want to be him, they don’t necessarily want to play him in a movie,” adds Kilmer, who turned down appearing in another Batman film to star in “The Saint” instead.

“[Something] I really respect and love about our dad is that he is a real serious classically trained actor but he has such a real love and reverence for comic books and big entertainment and that really simple joy of a character like Batman,” Mercedes told TooFab. “I think that’s something that he’s always wanted. He’s really dedicated to his craft, but he also really wants to share it with as many people as possible.”

“I think it was hard, like, on the set, he couldn’t move and that’s when he couldn’t act,” she added. “And I think that was hard for him as an actor, because he had all this stuff he wanted to do. But I think he really loves those roles like that and he’s, he’s always been very honored to have a place in that kind of American history of movies.”

While the experience may not have been the most fulfilling for Kilmer creatively, there were a few benefits to being in the movie at home.

“The experience I’ll never forget, of being put in the Batmobile as a kid … I thought I was Batman,” said Jack, who was seen in the doc as a child getting a coin-operated Batmobile as a gift. “We had the gloves, and everything at home from the movie so it was like, I don’t know what else to say. It’s just the best.”

At the time of the doc’s release, Kilmer was still doing convention appearances — with Batman fans still loving their interactions with him. At one point in the doc, Kilmer admitted that he sometimes felt “so low” and had “the blues really, really hard” whenever he felt like like he’s “selling basically my old self, my old career” doing signings and appearances for past films — but he also saw the upside of the situation.

“For many people, it’s like the lowest thing you can do is talk about your old pictures and sell photographs of when you were Batman or the Terminator,” he said — before adding, “but it enables me to meet my fans and what ends up happening is I feel really grateful rather than humiliated because there’s so many people.”

Val is still streaming on Prime Video.