Val Kilmer Remembered by Willow Co-Star Warwick Davis: “He Was a Beautiful Man”

Though Val Kimer may be gone, he is certainly not forgotten. At the opening of Universal’s new theme park Epic Universe in Orlando (via Entertainment Weekly), actor Warwick Davis had only fond memories to share of the late Kilmer. The two shared the screen in 1988’s fantasy adventure film Willow. Directed by Ron Howard, Davis played the titular character in Willow, a young farmer charged with protecting a special infant child from an infant sorceress queen (Jean Marsh). Kilmer was cast as Madmartigan, a disgraced knight looking to redeem himself. “I always like to tell the world how great he was, because I often think the media gave the wrong impression of who he was as a person,” Davis said. “He was a very warm, generous, kind-hearted person.”

Davis credits Kilmer as the reason he made it through the film’s shoot in the United Kingdom. “He’s really the reason I got through the making of the film Willow,” Davis gushed. “Because if ever I was tired, exhausted, fed up, cold, he’d say, ‘Come on, keep going!’ And he’d be the kind of leader of the army, keeping us going. He was a beautiful man.”

Kilmer Nearly Returned for Willow TV Series

In 2022, a Willow sequel series ran for one season on Disney+. Davis reprised his role as Willow, now a sorcerer himself, however, Kilmer didn’t join him, though not for lack of wanting to. The Willow series showrunner Jonathan Kasdan told Entertainment Weekly at the time, “We really wanted Val to come be in the show, and Val really wanted to come out and be in the show. I remember going to see Val right after this thing started to get some momentum, and I said, ‘Listen, we’re doing this. And the whole world wants Madmartigan back.’ And he was like, ‘Not as much as I do.’”

It was a combination of Kilmer’s 2015 throat cancer diagnosis and the COVID-19 pandemic that kept him from reprising his role of the beloved mythical knight, though he wasn’t written out of the series until the very last minute. “Val reluctantly didn’t feel he could come out.” Kasdan shared. “We had to figure out a way to preserve the story we wanted to tell with him about how his story was playing out.”Unfortunately, Willow was cancelled by the streamer, and Kilmer died of pneumonia in April 2025.

RELATED: Disney Finally Bringing Willow to 4K For the Very First Time

Willow Was Just One of a Lifetime of Iconic Performances from Kilmer

In his all too short 65 years of life, Val Kilmer possessed one of the widest ranges of acting performances in cinema history. Kilmer became a bona fide movie star with his turn as Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky in the smash hit Top Gun in 1986, a role he was well enough to reprise in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. Throughout his four-decade career, Kilmer also suited up as the caped crusader in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever alongside Jim Carrey and Nicole Kidman. Kilmer flexed his range with meatier roles portraying The Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison in The Doors, the thriller Heat, the historical drama Tombstone, and delightfully dark action-comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

The original Willow film is now streaming on Disney+.