Val Kilmer Has Had A Strange Hollywood Career

Val Kilmer's legendary antics during the filming of Dr. Moreau cemented his reputation for being difficult to work with. He was constantly fighting with the original director, co-star Marlon Brando, and much of the crew. Pn top of this, he often refused to come out of his trailer to shoot scenes and would not deliver his lines as written in the script.

His behavior was so erratic that when filming wrapped up, the replacement director, John Frankenheimer, said: “I don’t like Val Kilmer, I don’t like his work ethic, and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again.”

In Tomas Alfredson's 2017 film The Snowman, Val Kilmer plays a detective investigating a bizarre serial killer. Maybe it was because he was ill, but for whatever reason, the actor couldn’t deliver a competent performance to the point that all of his lines ended up needing to be redubbed by another actor.

The final cut of the film makes it appear as if Kilmer had no script, and had instead showed up without any idea of what he was supposed to be saying. The redub completely disrupts the movie, and makes Kilmer look even weirder than he ever has before. 

One of the most arduous films that Val Kilmer has worked on is Batman Forever. The actor replaced Michael Keaton, but became involved in heated arguments with the cast and crew almost immediately after shooting started.

Director Joel Schumacher said that Kilmer was "childish and impossible" throughout filming. He even refused to talk to the director for several weeks after he was scolded for bullying the crew and acting rude. 

Although there are plenty of stories about Kilmer mistreating other cast members and even directors, it is perhaps the crew that has taken the brunt of his bizarre behavior.As part of his process of method acting, Kilmer often stays in character even after the cameras stop rolling. In one instance, he apparently forced all of the crew of The Doors to refer to him exclusively as Jim (he was playing Jim Morrison). Then there was the time on the set of The Saint when Kilmer allegedly demanded that none of the crew make eye-contact with him.

These shoots sound rough, but even they can't compare to the insanity Kilmer subjected the crew of The Island of Dr. Moreau to. Many who worked on the movie have since spoken out against the actor, saying that he forced them to address him as "Mr. Kilmer" at all times, and in one bizarre incident, the star apparently put out a lit cigarette on the face of a cameraman. Witnesses have since confirmed that the action was done on purpose.

Kilmer's reputation for being demanding and difficult to work with on-set has long been established in Hollywood. An early indicator came when the actor was just 12 years old. Young Kilmer was set to appear in a television commercial advertising hamburgers, but the child abruptly quit midway through production. 

The reason that he gave to the director was that he just couldn't see why the character he was portraying would be eating hamburgers, and therefore he wouldn't’t be able to pretend he was enjoying them. 

The Chaos Experiment, also known as The Steam Experiment, is a thriller that stars Kilmer playing a mad scientist. The researcher wants to spread his message about global warming, and goes to extreme measures to get the word out.

These methods includes kidnapping six people and putting them through a horror-inducing ordeal. The actor puts on a bizarre performance, and much of the film is composed of shots of him staring into the distance. This is probably why the movie only screened for two weeks in two locations near Grand Rapids (where it was also shot) in 2009.