Val Kilmer's grudge against Kevin Spacey
PUSSSYKATT
What's a few thousand dollars in old debts between wealthy, successful movie
stars? Plenty, according to Batman-that-was Val Kilmer, who has a bone to pick
with fellow thespian Kevin Spacey.
Seems the Oscar-winning Spacey has been in Kilmer's doghouse for quite some
time, according to comments the famously temperamental star of the new romantic
drama At First Sight made in a recent interview with Mr. Showbiz.
It all goes back to the late '70s, when both were students at Juilliard. As
Kilmer tells it, his late father, Eugene, was "hustled" by the Usual Suspects
star, who claimed he was about to default on his tuition payments and asked the
senior Kilmer for a small loan. According to Kilmer, Spacey knew he was about
to quit school when he asked for money.
"It was, like, $18,000," Kilmer remembers. "My dad thought we were best friends
so he wrote him a check."
Years later, the two crossed paths after both had gone on to establish
flourishing acting careers. As Kilmer recalls it, "I said, 'Congratulations.
You're doing great, but you ought to pay my dad back. I don't have much to say
to you till you do that.' He sent my dad a thousand dollars and some sad-song
letter that was all lies."
Not surprisingly, Spacey sees things in a rather different light. When Mr.
Showbiz asked for his thoughts regarding Kilmer's claims, his publicist told
us, "Ten years ago Mr. Spacey repaid in full an $800 loan, with interest, made
by Eugene Kilmer in 1979 to help towards his first year's college expenses."
Apparently Kilmer's ill will hasn't rubbed off. Spacey's publicist further
states that the Oscar-winning actor feels "strongly" he would not have ascended
to his present status among Hollywood's elite without "the generous support of
[Eugene] Kilmer, and many like him."
There was even a kind word for his accuser, to whom Spacey remains
"particularly grateful" for having pointed him to Juilliard in the first place.
Awww.
VAL Kilmer wants you to like him. Having come off a string of high-profile
action duds (The Saint, The Ghost and the Darkness), a major sci-fi fiasco (The
Island of Dr. Moreau, after which director John Frankenheimer swore he’d never
work with the actor again), and a bitter divorce from actress Joanne Whalley,
the notoriously difficult actor seems eager to show his kinder, gentler side.
Kilmer can currently be heard as the voice of Moses in DreamWorks’ animated
family epic The Prince of Egypt. It’s his latest shot at slipping into the
shoes of a cultural icon, something the actor does with surprising ease. After
all, his best (and most flamboyant) performances—Jim Morrison in The Doors, Doc
Holliday in Tombstone—are startling impersonations of real-life historical
figures.
But Kilmer’s latest role is infinitely more tricky. At First Sight is an
intimate love story with a twist. “What if you fall in love at first sight and
you can’t see?” the actor says. In the film, he plays Virgil Adamson, a blind
masseur who is convinced by his architect girlfriend (Mira Sorvino) to undergo
experimental surgery to regain his sight. Based on a true story documented by
Dr. Oliver Sacks, At First Sight sometimes succumbs to sentimentality but
Kilmer’s sensitive, nuanced acting manages to skirt the goo.
Clad in a Hugo Boss leather jacket and purple-tinted John Lennon shades, the
actor chatted openly about playing blind, playing Batman, and playing with his
kids.
**Was playing a blind person a big challenge?**
It's probably the hardest role I've ever played. The premise couldn't be more
simple and yet more complex: What if you fall in love at first sight and you
can't see? The fact that it's a true story doesn't matter. It doesn't matter
that Titanic's a true story. It's a love story. Take the love story out and
you'd have nothing. And I think it's really Mira's character's love and belief
that inspires Virgil to see. The way that we tell the story is that she made
him something he was not.
**Mira Sorvino said you made her role easier because when you were playing the
character blind, even though you would react to her, there was nothing in your
eyes. Can you talk about how you achieved that?**
It was a lot of work. There are things that seem effortless to us that for
Virgil take a lot of effort. Just keeping his clothes neat, making sure his
shirt's tucked in. These are things that even when we can see, we still mess
up. I'm always doing that. But for Virgil it takes a lot of practice. I went to
New York really early on to rehearse for the role. I spent quite a bit of time
with my eyes closed in my room or with contact lenses on where I couldn't see.
And then I went out on the street and in the subway.
**Did you go out by yourself?**
Yeah. By myself and with friends. It was actually harder with friends. It was
very frustrating. They'd say, "Watch out!" But they didn't say "Watch out for
what?" If a dog was loose, they wouldn't tell me what direction he was coming
from.
**Did people on the street try to help you?**
Some did and some didn't. It's a very deep experience to stand on the street
and ask for directions, knowing someone's standing next to you but they won't
answer. They don't want to bother. It's an awful kind of pity. It's as though
there's something wrong with you because you're blind. And for a lot of blind
people I talked to, it's a question of pride. It's hard to admit that you're
lost. Children don't like to get lost, but imagine being in that condition as
an adult. It's very tough.
**Did you use any blind people as inspiration for your character?**
My friend Michael. He's a sculptor in Santa Fe [N.M.] who lost his sight in
Vietnam from a hand grenade. I've known him for years, so it was easy to work
with him. He has a miraculous spirit and a great sense of humor. He says, "My
first date. It was a blind date." He can tell jokes for hours.
Another inspiration were Shirl and Barbara Jennings, the real-life couple the
film is based on. They're so in love and so attentive to each other. It was
wonderful to watch. I also became friends with a blind masseur in White Plains.
**What did you learn from him?**
A lot, because Virgil has the same job in the film, so it was my good luck. He
read the script and was very soulful and insightful. He had a lot of
interesting ideas. For instance, he was very attached to his seeing-eye dog, so
he was always lobbying for more dog scenes. It's a very important relationship
for a blind person. There was a line toward the end of the film where I say
that my dog has been put out to pasture, and some of the focus groups that saw
the film were very upset. Irwin [Winkler] almost re-shot the scene because
people were upset that it sounded like the dog was dead. Also, in another
example of just strange good luck, he had met a woman who didn't know he was
blind, and they had their first conversation on the phone. And we talked about
the oddness of when you tell someone you'd like to date that you're blind.
Sometimes he'll wait until he gets a feeling about them because he feels like
they might cancel.
**You said it was especially hard to play Virgil after he regained his sight.
Why do you think that was?**
It's hard to describe. If Virgil closes his eyes and feels a table, he knows
what it is but it's very different when he sees it. It was hard to accurately
capture that physical state. Because the absolute reality is that it takes much
longer to regain sight than we could dramatize on-screen. What we filmed is as
realistic as we could make it, but Virgil just couldn't have learned that
quickly what a door looks like. I'd tell Irwin, "I can't do that." He'd say,
"Why?" and I'd say, "Because I can't see it." He'd say, 'Well, OK, can't you
just do the scene anyway?" We have that scene where Virgil first comes back to
Amy's apartment and is surprised to see the balloons she put up. But the
reality is that he would have found the sight of the bed equally bizarre. It
would be a much longer process for him to understand what he sees. But it would
have been distracting from the love story.
**As Virgil, you captured the way a blind person might physically hold himself.
Did you find that these physical characteristics were common in all blind
people?**
The two extremes are you're either very rigid—which the masseuse was. He'd talk
about it. It was a problem for him because it made people very nervous. There's
also this rocking thing that blind children do. But kids just don't care what
you think. We had Virgil go to both extremes so Irwin could pick and choose
what he wanted in the film. I even rock a lot now. It feels good. [Laughs.]
**You had a few scenes working with blind children. What was that like?**
Some of them handle it better than others. There was this one black boy who was
just angry. It was tough to watch him because you could tell. Some see better
than others so they don't want to be treated like they can't see. In some ways
it was really exposing, because we're really not that different than they are.
If you take the physical blindness aspect away from the film, it would be the
exact same film. Just a story about a guy from out of town who's never seen New
York before. When I moved to the city, I was 17, and it took me an hour to get
from 64th Street to 72nd. I felt like one of the Beverly Hillbillies.
**Your character Virgil is more comfortable living a quiet life in the country
than he is at living in New York City. Are you similiar off-screen?**
Yeah. I've been living in Santa Fe, N.M., since 1983. I've been going back and
forth between there and New York.
**Are you still a celebrity in Santa Fe, or are you able to be a more anonymous
type of guy?**
They don't care about actors there. It's an artistic, multicultural community.
There're a lot of eccentric characters out there and people who make enormous
contributions to their community. If you've been to Santa Fe, you're kind of
stuck with the tourist aspects of it, but there's a feeling underneath and a
soul to it. It comes from the quality of the lives of the community. I'm
grateful to expose that to my children, because I think it's vanishing out of
our culture everywhere. Even New York. Since I was there in the 1970s things
have changed.
**In the new Guiliani-family-friendly city?**
The Hungarian section of the East Village has vanished. Even in Greenpoint,
where most of the signs are written in Polish, it's now gentrified.
**What are you working on next?**
I have a film that will be at Sundance called Joe the King. Frank Whaley wrote
it and directed it. He's a great actor and comedian. He asked me to play his
dysfunctional alcoholic janitor father. This is Frank's real-life story of his
childhood. The kids in the film are fantastic. It's reminiscent of The 400
Blows. It's terrific.
**You went to Chatsworth High School with Mare Winningham and Kevin Spacey. Do
you still keep in touch with them?**
No, I have no idea what Mare's up to except I just saw the other day that she
has a new record out. And Kevin stole money from my dad, so I don't talk to
Kevin.
**In high school?**
No. College. We went to Juilliard, and he knew my dad well from high school,
and he hustled him. He told him that the school was going to kick him out
because he used up his student loans so my dad wrote him a check. Even though
Kevin knew he was gonna quit. So he hustled my dad for the money.
**Was it like, a thousand bucks?**
No, it was tuition. It was like, $18,000. My dad thought we were best friends
so he wrote him a check. I ran into Kevin years later, and he had made some
movies and probably won a Tony by then. I said, "Congratulations. You're doing
great, but you ought to pay my dad back. I don't have much to say to you till
you do that." He sent my dad a thousand dollars and some sad-song letter that
was all lies. And my dad died, [about] 1992 or '93, right before I started
Tombstone. So I'm gonna have to [have Spacey] pay for the college education of
my children.
[Kevin Spacey's publicist responds: "Ten years ago Mr. Spacey repaid in full an
$800 loan, with interest, made by Eugene Kilmer in 1979 to help towards his
first year's college expenses. He has always been grateful for the opportunity
this afforded him and feels strongly that without the generous support of Mr.
Kilmer, and many like him, he would never have achieved the success he has
today. He is particularly grateful to Val for having suggested he apply to
Juilliard in the first place."]
**What was it like working on The Prince of Egypt?**
Oh, it just gave me quivers. It was just an amazing group of artists. I don't
know if Jeffrey [Katzenberg] really got credit for [having] the courage to make
such an unusual breakthrough animated film. I can't say enough about it. It's a
classic.
**Any trepidation about playing the character of Moses?**
No, because the three directors on that film and Jeffrey really created a warm
feeling of collaboration. They were so thorough about everything. I didn't
really have concerns because they had talked to so many religious scholars.
[That's] the kind of thing that an actor usually has to do himself. [Pauses.]
That's the most bacon I've ever had in my whole life.
**Did you see ever see Batman and Robin?**
Half of it. The same half everybody else saw, but I had to turn it off.
Especially when I saw a picture of that silver bat suit. Wow. It was hard
enough wearing the black one.
**Do you see yourself doing more independent, small-scale films in the
future?**
I would love to do a movie just like this every year. I've really been
fortunate in that nothing I've done has ever prevented me from doing anything
else. That happens all the time, unfortunately. It depends on who you are and
the kind of rhythm in which you work. Bruce Willis comes to mind. If [he'd
taken] two and a half years off after he did Hudson Hawk, he probably would've
been in trouble. But he just loves to work, and that's his rhythm. I'd like to
work more on projects that don't take so long to do. Even Heat. I didn't play
the lead in that [movie], but it took forever. I started it the day after
Batman Forever, and it just took [nearly] as long—about four and a half months.
It took about 14 days total to do the shootout scene. Every Sunday, forever. Go
down to L.A. and blow it up. It must've been really weird for the people
working in the area. Thousands of rounds of bullets. He [director Michael Mann]
had 11 cameras on that [scene].
**Now that your divorce is over, are you more comfortable talking about it?**
The last couple of years have been pretty difficult because of my divorce and
custody issues. That's something I never talked about in the press because I
didn't think it was the right thing to do. Now that the trial's over, I don't
feel so bad about telling the truth of it. I never lied. I just didn't think it
was appropriate to talk about. That was really a damaging time; to say that I
can't co-parent my children is pretty vicious stuff. But, unfortunately, that's
what happens with divorce.
**Your ex-wife, Joanne Whalley, is British. So does that mean half of the year
the kids are raised in England?**
They live here. That was one of the dramas going on. But there were certain
periods of time when it would have been legal for her to just take the
children, which was really terrifying.
**So they have to stay in this country even though you have joint custody?**
Yeah. She could move. But the kids have dual passports. All children in the
United States who have a foreign parent do until they turn 18. [Pauses.] I
can't remember the question. Did we answer it?
**Are you a real hands-on dad off-screen?**
Yeah, I am. My kids really deepen my sense of gratitude for having what I have.
They also really energize me. Just over Christmas my 7-year-old daughter took
up skiing. My 3-year-old son is fearless, so I thought he would really jump on
it too, but he didn't. He'll usually do anything she does, but he was very
happy just staying in. But [when] I was a kid, I really appreciated that my
parents didn't push things on us. And the mountains aren't going anywhere.
The Monkey
>MR. SHOWBIZ....
>
>**Was playing a blind person a big challenge?**
>
>It's probably the hardest role I've ever played. The premise couldn't be more
>simple and yet more complex: What if you fall in love at first sight and you
>can't see? The fact that it's a true story doesn't matter. It doesn't matter
>that Titanic's a true story. It's a love story. Take the love story out and
>you'd have nothing.
That's gotta be the dumbest thing I've ever heard an actor say.
the monkey
Puzzla
PUSSSYKATT wrote:
> MR. SHOWBIZ....
>
> What's a few thousand dollars in old debts between wealthy, successful movie
> stars? Plenty, according to Batman-that-was Val Kilmer, who has a bone to pick
> with fellow thespian Kevin Spacey.
Okay I'm gonna snip it right here because its long and I don't have much to say.
Except, doesn't this sound like Kevin was 'paid' for something extra? Who would
give Kevin that much money without a word from Val? I doubt they'd give money to
anyone who said they were a close friend of their son without verifying it with the
son. Things that make you go, hmmm....
Puzz
CaseyADD
>
>
>
>PUSSSYKATT wrote:
>
>> MR. SHOWBIZ....
>>
>> What's a few thousand dollars in old debts between wealthy, successful movie
>>stars? Plenty, according to Batman-that-was Val Kilmer, who has a bone to pick
>> with fellow thespian Kevin Spacey.
>
>Except, doesn't this sound like Kevin was 'paid' for something extra? Who would
>give Kevin that much money without a word from Val? I doubt they'd give money
>to
>anyone who said they were a close friend of their son without verifying it with
>the
>son. Things that make you go, hmmm....
>
>Puzz
And the previous thread about Val and the well-known Latino/Italian made me
think of John Leguizamo. Though he's Latino, I haven't any idea if part of him
is Italian. They just made a movie together sometime last year.
CaseyADD
WoodyTurd
>>
>> What's a few thousand dollars in old debts between wealthy, successful
>movie
>> stars? Plenty, according to Batman-that-was Val Kilmer, who has a bone to
>pick
>> with fellow thespian Kevin Spacey.
>
>Okay I'm gonna snip it right here because its long and I don't have much to
>say.
>Except, doesn't this sound like Kevin was 'paid' for something extra? Who
>would
>give Kevin that much money without a word from Val? I doubt they'd give
>money to
>anyone who said they were a close friend of their son without verifying it
>with the
>son. Things that make you go, hmmm....
>
>Puzz
>
hmmmmmm, yes. I think Kevin repaid the loan in trade. What parent loans a
high school chum of his kid $18,000?
Val is a poopoo head and he should let this one go.
The end.
~~~~tra-lee-la and fiddle-dee-dee, a turd's work is never done!~~~~
Puzzla
CaseyADD wrote:
> In article <369FE607...@nonaol.com>, Puzzla says...
> >
> >
> >
> >PUSSSYKATT wrote:
> >
> >> MR. SHOWBIZ....
> >>
> >> What's a few thousand dollars in old debts between wealthy, successful movie
> >>stars? Plenty, according to Batman-that-was Val Kilmer, who has a bone to pick
> >> with fellow thespian Kevin Spacey.
> >
> >Okay I'm gonna snip it right here because its long and I don't have much to say.
> >Except, doesn't this sound like Kevin was 'paid' for something extra? Who would
> >give Kevin that much money without a word from Val? I doubt they'd give money
> >to
> >anyone who said they were a close friend of their son without verifying it with
> >the
> >son. Things that make you go, hmmm....
> >
> >Puzz
>
> And the previous thread about Val and the well-known Latino/Italian made me
> think of John Leguizamo. Though he's Latino, I haven't any idea if part of him
> is Italian. They just made a movie together sometime last year.
>
> CaseyADD
Isn't he part Italian as well? I seem to recall him saying something like that. His
last name is probably Italian.
Puzz
CaseyADD
aztec...@aol.com........ says...
And 100% gay. And a good actor. Actually I recheck the blind item and it said
a well-formed Latino/Italian, not well-known. Could be anybody.
CaseyADD
Puzzla
AztecaMeca wrote:
> >Puzzla wrote:
> >
> >Isn't he part Italian as well? I seem to recall him saying something like
> >that. His
> >last name is probably Italian.
> >
> >Puzz
> >
>
> John is 100% Colombian.
So he was born in Colombia?
Puzz
Reine Lily
There's a Juan Valdez joke in here somewhere. I can just sense it.
Lily <--- who's still giddy over tonight's X-Files =DDD
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
http://travel.to/billybob
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=