Val Kilmer‘s Top Gun and Batman Forever co-stars are paying tribute to the late actor, who died Tuesday at age 65. Tom Cruise — who played Maverick opposite Kilmer as his rival turned wingman Iceman in 1986’s Top Gun — honored his co-star with a moment of silence during Paramount’s CinemaCon panel in Las Vegas on Thursday. “I’d like to honor a dear friend of mine, Val Kilmer, for a moment,” Cruise, in attendance to promote Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, said from Caesars Palace’s Colosseum stage. “I really can’t tell you how much I admire his work, how much I thought of him as a human being, how honored I was when he joined Top Gun and came back for Top Gun: Maverick.”
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Cruise reunited with the retired Kilmer for 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, in what would be his final on-screen role. “If we just all take a moment to remember the wonderful time we had with him — let’s just take a moment,” Cruise said, his hand on his heart. Once the moment of silence concluded, Cruise added of Kilmer, “I wish you well on your next journey.”
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Jim Carrey, who played question mark-covered villain the Riddler opposite Kilmer’s Dark Knight in 1995’s Batman Forever, also paid tribute to his one-time co-star in a statement published on Thursday.
“I’m remembering Val Kilmer today with great admiration for him as a man and as a generational talent who left us an enviable legacy of indelible acting performances,” the tribute reads (via Entertainment Weekly). “His greatest artistic achievements were rivaled only by the grace and courage with which he endured his life’s most challenging moments,” Carrey continued. “Wishing his family so much love.”
Kilmer’s daughter, Mercedes, told The New York Times earlier this week that his cause of death was pneumonia. Kilmer had battled throat cancer for several years, which inspired his 2021 documentary, Val. Kilmer wrote, produced, and appeared in the Leo Scott and Ting Poo-directed documentary, which was narrated by Kilmer’s son, actor Jack Kilmer.
At $354 million worldwide, the original Top Gun was Kilmer’s highest-grossing film of his career until it was surpassed by the $1.4 billion-grossing Top Gun sequel in 2022. Beyond his single outing as Batman in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever — also starring Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Nicole Kidman as Dr. Chase Meridian, and Chris O’Donnell as his sidekick Robin — Kilmer is most remembered for his roles as Madmartigan in Willow, Jim Morrison in The Doors, Doc Holliday in Tombstone, Chris Shiherlis in Heat, and Perry Van Shrike in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
