66 Years Ago Today, the Most Underrated Batman Actor Was Born (And His Journey to the Character Is Iconic)

As fictional characters go, there are few more recognizable as Batman. For 86 years, the DC hero has been a pop culture fixture, appearing in countless comic books and inspiring generations of readers. The character has always been brought to life on screen many, many times with every generation having their own version of the Caped Crusader to call their own. You can ask just about anyone who their favorite Batman is and they’ll give you the name of an actor who notably brought the character to life: Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, Kevin Conroy, even Adam West. But there’s one actor whose time as Batman has been deeply underrated — and he was born 66 years ago today.

Val Kilmer was born on December 31, 1959 and would have celebrated his 66th birthday today but while the actor had an extensive career that spanned film, television, and the stage and he is well known for roles in truly iconic films such as Top Gun, Willow, The Doors, and Tombstone just to name a few, it’s his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Forever that might be some of the best work of his career — and his road to becoming the hero is almost better than fiction.

Val Kilmer Was Practically Destined to Be Batman

While Michael Keaton had portrayed Batman in both Batman and Batman Returns, creative differences regarding the third film. Tim Burton, who had directed the first two films, had departed with Joel Schumacher coming on for what would become Batman Forever. Keaton’s departure meant that the iconic role was now vacant and in need of a new hero. In a sense, the timing was good. Schumacher sought to make a Batman movie that was closer in spirit to the comics so recasting the hero was a major step towards that change in direction. Schumacher saw Kilmer’s performance in Tombstone and was impressed. He brought Kilmer on soon after Keaton vacated the role.

For Kilmer, becoming the new Batman was exciting. He notably took the role without even knowing who the director for the film would be and without reading a script. His casting also had very unique timing that some might consider fate. Kilmer apparently found out that he was going to be the next Batman after returning to London from the set of The Ghost and the Darkness in Africa and when he thought about the timing of the message congratulating him on becoming Batman versus what he was doing at the time that decision was made and sent, he realized that had been in a cave of bats in South Africa. Kilmer himself would claim it was just “a happy series of bizarre circumstances”.

Circumstance or not, it also wasn’t Kilmer’s first brush with Batman well before he became the hero. When he was in the second grade, Kilmer and his two brothers went to the set of Adam West’s 1960s Batman television show. If that alone wasn’t a dream come true for a kid and Batman fan, it only got better for young Kilmer: he even got to sit in the Batmobile. It would seem that, for the actor, all paths lead to his own time as the Caped Crusader.

Kilmer’s Time As Batman Was Personally Disappointing — But His Performance Remains Iconic

Unfortunately for Kilmer, becoming Batman for real wasn’t exactly as exciting as perhaps it had seemed to him as a child. Kilmer would end up playing the role for just one film and later explained in the documentary Val that the Batsuit made playing the character difficult. Kilmer called the experience “isolating.”

“I took the part without even the script,” Kilmer said in the documentary (via his son, Jack, who narrated for him as Kilmer had trouble speaking after a battle with throat cancer). “But whatever boyish excitement I had going in was crushed by the reality of the Batsuit. When you’re in it, you can barely move and people have to help you stand up and sit down. You also can’t hear anything after a while, people stop talking to you. It’s very isolating. It was a struggle for me to get a performance past the suit and it was frustrating until I realized that my role in the film was just to show up and stand where I was told to.”

Even with the challenges Kilmer faced, his take on Batman — and especially on Bruce Wayne — still stands out as one of the most complex and perhaps the performance that, to date, is the most full of depth. Kilmer’s take on Bruce Wayne in particular is perhaps the most human. The film focuses less on how Bruce becomes Batman and more on his time in the role, but the film’s romantic relationship between Bruce and Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) actually opens up a more rich, psychological examination of the character. The film sees Bruce dealing with some of the duality of Bruce Wayne and Batman, and in portraying that conflict and inner turmoil, Kilmer shines. For as almost mythological a creature that Batman is, Kilmer is able to make Bruce a deeply human character and he does it so well that you are able to see a clear difference between the man and his alter ego. It’s brilliant and it’s beautiful.

And, even with the professional challenges and disappointment that Kilmer experienced, he was able to find beauty in Batman as well.

“For me, the most pleasure I had in going to work was when children would come by, which was often because there’s something about a guy dressed up as a bat that’s completely captivating to children,” Kilmer said in 1995. “It was really satisfying to see the look in their eyes, because it didn’t require much effort on my part; they just liked looking at the mask and their own imagination did the rest.”

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