If you’re LGBTQIA+ or like airplanes, you’re likely aware that in a 2006 interview about Top Gun, Val Kilmer is asked to rate the homoerotic content of the film from 1-10, and he, without hesitation, replies “Eleven.” Between the hot, shirtless volleyball scene, Kilmer playfully chomping the air at Tom Cruise’s Maverick in the locker room, and this interview, Kilmer cemented himself as a recurring character in many a gay man’s mind. But did you know that his iconic role in 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was originally written as … Straight Perry?
“He wasn’t gay when I read it. I insisted. I said Shane, we gotta get a little color in here. We gotta juice it up a little. I think I should be gay. I think I should kiss Robert Downey in the middle of the film. Maybe even earlier. Several times.” *
This revelation, alongside Kilmer’s open playfulness regarding the “Icemav” ship, made me wonder – what else has the famously serious actor played a little gay?
Although Kilmer has acted in everything from blockbuster movies to complete flops, he took every role seriously. Some would argue, too seriously. His perfectionism earned him the dreaded label of “difficult.”** But through interviews, his touching self-filmed documentary, and his memoir, we get the idea that the difficulty came from a real desire to make good art. Did he suggest, as some think, that Perry be “Gay Perry” for laughs? Somehow, I doubt it. As producer Jordan Krause notes, “For all his foibles, Kilmer always struck me as a sincere guy.” If Kilmer is playing roles queer, there’s likely something to it.
Looking at Kilmer’s filmography with an eye for the queer turned into a fascinating look at his career. There appears to be a scale – from the canonically gay Gay Perry to his rendition of the troubled but big-dicked John Holmes, with Doc Holliday of Tombstone firmly in the middle. I watched eight*** Val Kilmer films and attempted to rate the gay on the aforementioned scale. We have (in order of release, not queerness):
- Top Gun (1986)
- Tombstone (1993)
- Batman Forever (1995)
- The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
- The Saint (1997)
- Wonderland (2003)
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
- Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Without further ado, my gay-rating on the eight films I watched this month.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Gay Perry
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is both a loving spoof of old noir stories and the perfect noir story, with the relationship between Downey’s Harry Lockhart and Kilmer’s Gay Perry at the heart of the entire thing. Like I mentioned, not everyone was on board with how the film presented Perry’s queerness. Perry’s homosexuality is such a clear and outspoken part of his character, a very 2005 brand of biting, joyful queerness weaponized to do everything from simply making homophobes uncomfortable to getting Perry and Harry out of serious jams. Perry is also quick-witted, brave, great at his job, and hilarious outside of his jokes about his experience as a gay man.
But there’s no argument here – Gay Perry is canonically gay. And we have it on record that it was 100% Kilmer’s idea.
Gay Perry is an inversion of the private dick stereotype, making his role as Harry’s mentor for a traditional detective acting gig much more interesting. We don’t have a lot of information on why Kilmer felt this specific choice was the right one for adding color and making the character more exciting to play, but I have a hard time believing it was done with malice. Kilmer brings his all to the performance, and many think it’s one of his best roles. In his documentary, Val, he says he brings himself into every character and every character into himself. That seems like a deep sentiment to attach to “acting gay for laughs.”
So, on a scale of Gay Perry to John Holmes: Gay Perry is Gay Perry (obviously).
The Island of Dr. Moreau, Montgomery
The Island of Dr. Moreau was not an instant classic. It wasn’t a cult classic, either. Despite a fantastic cast (Hello, Marlon Brando!) and incredible source material courtesy of H.G. Wells, it just kinda … didn’t float. But it is a deeply weird movie, and Kilmer’s acting choices make him the most watchable part of the disaster.
The way Kilmer’s Montgomery interacts with our protagonist, Douglas (played by David Thewlis), seems to change the story into something else entirely. It is ostensibly about Douglas arriving on the island, unaware that Moreau (Marlon Brando) is playing God by creating human-animal hybrids. As he attempts to wrap his mind around what he’s seeing, it becomes clear that the neuroscientist-turned-veterinarian Montgomery has other plans. Perhaps his motivation is disagreement with the way Dr. Moreau does things, or a power grab, or a clean break in his sanity. However, Kilmer brings such intensity to his interactions with Thewlis and such a lascivious presence throughout the entire film that it’s pretty easy to sign on to an alternate read.
In fact, once you notice it, it’s hard to read the story as the source material, or even the script, intended at all. The film isn’t about all that shit above. It’s about Montgomery, alone on this island full of people who are literally a different species, and a mentor who mostly ignores him. He finds Douglas shipwrecked and stranded and brings him home. As he does his best to flirt, influence, and impress Douglas, he realizes that Douglas, much like Moreau, is more invested in the animal hybrids. He is particularly drawn to Aissa, the cat-woman “daughter” of Moreau, played by Fairuza Balk.**** Rejected both by his mentor and the man he is infatuated with, he goes mad with jealousy, ruins Aissa’s chances at staying human, starts a coup, and generally destroys everything.
Kilmer plays Montgomery as an intellect above and beyond the norm, trapped on an island playing doctor and jailer to Moreau’s creations. A lonely man with a big mind, slowly losing it, desperately seeking connection – and not finding it. Rather than a black-and-white villain, Kilmer turns Montgomery into a tragic figure.
On a scale of Gay Perry to John Holmes, we are firmly snuggled up to Gay Perry.
The Saint, Simon Templar
With Simon Templar, Kilmer edges ever closer to our mid-point, Doc Holliday. His character is a professional thief and master of disguise hired to steal the formula for cold fusion, who ends up getting reverse-Uno’d on his honey pot. Val plays Simon straight. He’s focused on his job and madly in love with his target. In a film full of unbelievable plot points, you believe he’s hot for Dr. Emma Russell (Elisabeth Shue). So why did I place it on the gay side of Tombstone?
As I mentioned, Simon is a master of disguise. He does more than stick some prosthetics on his face and put on an accent. Simon creates fully developed characters with backstories, props, filled journals, and more. And they’re all gay. All of them. He doesn’t say this explicitly, but you barely have to pay attention to see it. Even the alter ego named for St. Thomas More, whom he creates to seduce Emma, reads gay. See the video above: the long-haired, leather pants-clad Thomas is lounging on a bench intently sketching a naked man when he begins his flirtation.
Simon seems to have a deep affection for each of the characters he embodies, naming them after saints whose stories capture some element of what he is struggling with. I believe we have to assume that Kilmer holds the same affection. He plays Simon one way – brash, incredibly private, and very dangerous. But the characters Simon inhabits for moments or months are gentler, less threatening. Easier to talk to and trust. Thomas More is the sensitive poet who can convince the guarded physicist to be vulnerable, and eventually pull her to his side as Simon. He’s special in ways that Simon cannot be on his own.
Perhaps Kilmer was trying to embody different parts of Simon Templar inside the movie, the way he tried to embody different parts of himself in his film roles.
On a scale of Gay Perry to John Holmes, we are still on the left side but inching ever closer to center.
Top Gun/Top Gun: Maverick, Iceman
Yes, I put the Top Gun movies toward the middle of the scale and together. Our beautifully lipped gay icon, Val Kilmer, is only in the second one for a few incredibly gay minutes, and the plot is “planes with guns”; it doesn’t rate a whole entry. The Top Gun films sit close to the middle for the sole reason that after watching Kilmer gay it up in KKBB, Dr. Moreau, and The Saint, Iceman’s behavior feels downright subtle. The plot of the first one is also “planes with guns,” with a splash of “two young hot shots are in competition with each other in a very homoerotic fashion.” That may as well be the title of the scene above. Cruise’s Maverick announces, “I am dangerous” (Maverick, you flirt!), and Iceman playfully bites at him. It’s an enemies-to-lovers plot through and through, but Maverick still has to bang a hot astrophysicist (Kelly McGillis) because this movie was basically a Navy recruitment ad, and in 1986, it was still completely and totally illegal to be gay in the military.
In the sequel, which would end up being Kilmer’s last film role before his untimely death, Iceman is the admiral at Top Gun, who saves Mav’s career by specially requesting him to train a new team. Kilmer is only on screen for a few minutes, but there is no doubt in my mind that he purposely presents himself as much gayer than in the first film. Kilmer put a lot of thought into Iceman’s backstory, why he behaved the way he did, and why he strove so hard. He once quipped that he “daydreamed every day” about Iceman and Maverick’s history between Top Gun and the sequel. I don’t believe Kilmer’s characterizations are ever accidents, but especially not in this case.
On a scale of Gay Perry to John Holmes, Iceman is Gay Perry.Doc Holliday.
Tombstone, Doc Holliday
Tombstone sits in the direct middle of our scale. In the documentary, Val, Kilmer says he thought of this movie as a love story between two men, and if you’ve ever seen it, the final scene between his character and Wyatt Earp supports that. Kilmer even insisted they put him on literal ice so he could feel the pain he imagined Doc Holliday was feeling as he lay dying, begging his friend to move on. But Val Kilmer appreciates all kinds of love two men can share, and in this film that seemed ripe for a full gay performance, he played it straight. Kinda.
While Kilmer does not play the love between Holliday and Earp as anything but platonic (though very deep), there is something about his Doc Holliday that just … isn’t straight. He brings a level of camp to the idea of a Southern intellectual turned outlaw turned deputy that is difficult to ignore. It is almost as though Kilmer is not playing Doc Holliday at all, but instead he is playing a fictional gay actor who is playing Doc Holliday and almost succeeding at playing straight. There’s no doubt he had love for the character, the film, and his co-stars. The on-set videos he took seep joy and camaraderie. But there is something halfway about this one.
On a scale of Gay Perry to John Holmes, Doc Holliday sits right in the middle.
Batman Forever, Batman/Bruce Wayne
Are you surprised to find Batman Forever on this side of Doc Holliday? Perhaps you haven’t seen it in a while. The movie itself is, without a doubt, really fucking gay. Kilmer’s Batman/Bruce Wayne? Not so much. Kilmer’s Batman was famously the first to have nipples. He drives a Batmobile that looks like a dick and an anglerfish fucked and somehow bred a car. Robin’s original suit is designed in such a way that it literally spreads his asscheeks. This is to say nothing of The Riddler turning more and more Liberace as the film goes on. Batman Forever is a flashy, flamboyant camp-fest in every single way but one.
Kilmer plays it plain. There’s something fascinating about watching several movies where Kilmer goes campy or queer over what’s written in the script, just to run into what may be the gayest movie he’s ever been in and see him as the only straight in the village. At times, he seems to be playing it almost ace. When his character receives attention from women, he responds as though he can’t tell they’re flirting, or like he’s embarrassed about the entire thing. Kilmer puts his acting choices in this film down to how hard it was to function in the suit, so I don’t know how much there is to read into here, but I do find it an interesting parallel to his later life, where he writes in his memoir that he hadn’t had a girlfriend in 20 years. Perhaps that’s the part of him that went into Batman, or the other way around.
On a scale of Gay Perry to John Holmes, this is as close to John Holmes as you get without going full John Holmes.
Wonderland, John Holmes
Wonderland tells the story of John Holmes’ involvement in the infamous Wonderland murders. This is John Holmes after the porn career, after the drugs, after repeatedly kidnapping his teenage neighbor. John Holmes the has-been and addict. Kilmer manages to portray Holmes as almost sympathetic (confining the story to Wonderland alone helps). I assume Kilmer played this one straight for two reasons.
- Holmes is a historical figure with a rich and fascinating (though tragic) backstory.
- Holmes is about as stereotypical white male as you can get. He’s obsessed with his dick, entitled, scheming, and treats the women in his life like they exist only for his benefit.
Kilmer was a gifted actor, in part due to his keen observation of how people behave in the real world. There was nothing about John Holmes that read queer, and Kilmer didn’t add it. Despite his ability to portray Holmes as a full human that you even occasionally feel sorry for, Kilmer doesn’t seem to want to project anything onto the character that wasn’t there. The real genius in his portrayal is that you see both sides of Holmes. The confident and cocksure “star” he used to be, and the bumbling, insecure, and terribly lonely man he became.
One really has to wonder which parts of the Holmes character Kilmer took away from that role. In his later years, it is obvious Kilmer wrestled with aging publicly, “losing” his looks due to cancer, and struggling to communicate due to his tracheostomy. If the Val Kilmer of 2003 couldn’t relate to Holmes adjusting to life as someone who “used to be” famous and cashing in on his old work, the Val Kilmer of 2021 not only understood it, but was willing to put it on screen for us to watch in Val.
On a scale of Gay Perry to John Holmes, John Holmes is John Holmes. Straight as it gets with a 14″ dick.
Our favorite gay icon, Val Kilmer, was a true artist. He acted, painted, and wrote poetry. He had big dreams and made big mistakes. He had striking looks and a reputation for difficulty. But we love him for his willingness to bring queer identity to the screen, even in the 1990s and early aughts, when it was difficult to find queer-coded entertainment, let alone characters who were unapologetically queer. Kilmer writes in his memoir that he is not gay and has “always found women more interesting than men,” so we won’t get into speculation. Though I admit the use of “interesting” is … well, interesting to me. Val Kilmer was a complex man who worked hard to bring the fullness of human experience to the screen and stage, and he didn’t shy away from parts that weren’t specific to his life or orientation. I look forward to watching even more of his work for an eye for queerness and/or what he poured into the role.
Cheers to the one, the only, the gay icon – Val Kilmer!
*Who among us does not want to kiss Robert Downey, Jr “several times”? Just me? Come on…
**This label is often less damning for men in Hollywood than it is for women. That’s a different article, though.
***Kilmer’s filmography is insane. These choices were made somewhat haphazardly. For example, I didn’t include Heat because the night I watched it, I was too tired to finish it. I didn’t get around to Willow despite Kilmer cross-dressing, complete with huge tits. He’s been in too many movies to do them all, and I’m sure I missed your favorite or the one you think is most queer. I’m sorry.
****Perhaps it’s a good thing this movie didn’t explode, Fairuza Balk and Val Kilmer in the same film at the heights of their hotness? How many bisexuals can the Earth possibly support?!
