Val Kilmer Could Have Been Ponyboy? Johnny Castle?
Maybe you loved Val Kilmer best as the Iceman in Top Gun, or an eerily accurate Jim Morrison in The Doors. Or maybe your favorite Val role is Doc Holliday in Tombstone … or a melancholy Batman in Batman Forever. But while the volatile-yet-versatile actor made his mark on lots of memorable roles, he turned down some big-deal parts, too.
Would Val have made a prince of a Johnny Castle in the beloved Dirty Dancing? A youthful Frank Horrigan minus the JFK backstory? Read on to find out other memorable roles which could have been played by Kilmer.
Ponyboy Curtis — The Outsiders (1983)
Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection; Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Kilmer’s streetwise good looks would have fit in nicely with his fellow “greaser” actors — Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio — in Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of the S.E. Hinton coming-of-age novel, The Outsiders.
But like his would-be character, Michael “Ponyboy” Curtis (played by C. Thomas Howell), Kilmer did the right thing. Cast in Broadway’s The Slab Boys with fellow teen dreams Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon, Kilmer’s absence would’ve kiboshed the production. So the actor rejected the film and stayed with the play, ensuring that the show would go on.
Johnny Castle — Dirty Dancing (1987)
Artisan Entertainment/ Courtesy: Everett Collection.; Evan Agostini/Getty Images
If you think it’s pretty tough to picture Kilmer rescuing Baby (Jennifer Grey) from a corner, you’re in good company. Kilmer couldn’t see it, either. Already irritated by what he interpreted as his vapid role in Top Gun, Kilmer wasn’t about to play another hunky fellow in a popcorn flick. He starred in Ron Howard’s fantasy epic Willow instead.
Paul Atreides/Paul-Muad’Dib — Dune (1984)
Everett Collection; Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Kilmer was the frontrunner to play the noble warrior protagonist in David Lynch’s box office flop-turned-cult classic. But the reason that the role ultimately went to Kyle MacLachlan depends on whom you ask. Kilmer and MacLachlan both gave ace auditions. But in A Masterpiece in Disarray, Max Evry’s oral history of the film, Dune actor Everett McGill revealed that, “I heard [producer] Dino [De Laurentiis] had misgivings over the shape of [Kilmer’s] lips.”
A more likely scenario: Kilmer had already been cast in Top Secret! and just moved on. Kilmer also turned down MacLachlan’s role in Lynch’s 1986 Blue Velvet because he considered it soft porn — a decision that he later said he regretted.
Brian McCaffrey — Backdraft (1991)
Universal/courtesy Everett Collection; Evan Agostini/Getty Images
In 1991, Kilmer (along with Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Johnny Depp, Dennis Quaid) turned down the role of firefighter Brian “Bull” McCaffrey in Ron Howard’s Oscar-nominated thriller Backdraft. But what makes the snub especially notable is that the role eventually went to William Baldwin, who also took Kilmer-rejected roles in 1993’s Sharon Stone starrer Sliver and the 1995 Cindy Crawford bomb, Fair Game. But while Kilmer and Crawford never became costars, they did eventually date.
Frank Horrigan — In the Line of Fire (1993)
Bruce McBroom//Columbia Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection; Evan Agostini/Getty Images
A roster of A-listers from Robert Redford to Sean Connery were considered for Clint Eastwood’s iconic role in the Oscar-nominated presidential thriller. But a then thirty-something Kilmer was in the running to play tormented CIA agent Horrigan, too. The deal likely fell through because screenwriter Jeff McGuire refused to ditch the film’s JFK-related backstory to accommodate a younger actor — including Ron Howard’s attempt to turn the movie into a vehicle for Tom Cruise.
Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter — Crimson Tide (1995)
© Buena Vista Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection
Kilmer later admitted he regretted turning down producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer when they approached him to star in the Oscar-nominated Tony Scott suspense film Crimson Tide. But Kilmer was in high demand in the early ’90s … and he’d become Batman instead.
Jack Swigert — Apollo 13 (1995)
Universal/courtesy Everett Collection; Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Never one to be wooed by the potential of a blockbuster, Kilmer turned down this high-profile role in Ron Howard’s classic space-based nail-biter. Instead, he headed to Africa to make the ill-fated The Ghost and the Darkness, in which he and Michael Douglas played a pair of hunters tracking maneless man-eating lions. Kilmer’s role went to Kevin Bacon, who was evolving into more serious roles.
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