When Val Kilmer heard Tom Cruise was making a Top Gun sequel, he jumped at the chance to return to the role of Iceman.
Kilmer, 60, wrote about pursuing a spot in the film in his new memoir I’m Your Huckleberry. In it, he described his reaction to hearing Cruise, 57, was working on Top Gun: Maverick.
“He was calling it Top Gun: Maverick. Well, Tom was Maverick, but Maverick’s nemesis was Iceman. The two went together like salt and pepper,” Kilmer wrote. “It didn’t matter that the producers didn’t contact me. As the Temptations sang in the heyday of Motown soul, ‘ain’t too proud to beg.’”
Kilmer got to work, reaching out to producers and creating “heartrending scenes with Iceman.”
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“Forget the fact that thirty years had passed since I’d seen the ghost of Iceman’s dad. I remembered it like it was yesterday,” he wrote. “The producers went for it. Cruise went for it. Cruise couldn’t have been cooler. And the next thing I knew I was back, as the Beatles said, where I ‘once belonged.’”
Getting to return to his character was an experience Kilmer loved, but don’t ask the star to spoil the film’s plot.
“Tom and I took up where we left off. The reunion felt great,” he wrote. “As far as the film’s plot goes, I’m sworn to secrecy.”
In his memoir, Kilmer recounted how his "favorite moment" with Cruise on the set of the original involved a "small prank."
"I gave him an extremely expensive bottle of champagne but placed it in the middle of a giant field and made him follow scavenger-hunt-style clues to find it," he wrote. "I hid behind a bleacher and watched him lug the giant crate to his motorcycle. He never did thank me for the Iceman-style bit. I thought it would break the ice, but I guess the ice was just right."
The sequel is set to hit theaters on December 23, 2020, and also stars Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Glen Powell.
I’m Your Huckleberry is now available for purchase.
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