Val Kilmer Didn’t Hold Back About The Rivalry That Happened Behind The Cameras Of ‘Top Gun’

Top Gun 2: Maverick made its debut and was the seventh-highest-grossing film ever at the domestic box office, earning $662 million in ticket sales. The sequel of the original action drama lasted over 13 weeks at the box office and was a hit with old and new fans alike since the original “Top Gun” in 1986.

Though most Love Tom Cruise, he’s not the only character we’ll be seeing once again. In one of his more famous roles, Val Kilmer played Iceman alongside Tom in the original film. Though Val has talked about working with Tom on the film before, he revealed in the 2021 Amazon Prime documentary Val, that the Iceman-Maverick feud on camera was also an off-screen rivalry, as well.

However, it had nothing to do with bad feelings between Val and Tom. According to Val, the rivalry had more to do with how both actors were preparing for their scenes.

In the documentary, Val said, “On the page, there was very little to the character Iceman, so I tended to make him real. I manifested a backstory for him, where he had a father who ignored him, and as a result, I was driven by a need to be perfect in every way. This obsession with perfection is what made him so arrogant.”

Val continued, “I would purposefully play up the rivalry between Tom’s character and mine off-screen as well, and what ended up happening is the actors in true method fashion, split into two distinct camps. You had Maverick and Goose (Anthony Edwards) on one side, and Slider (Rick Rossovich), Hollywood (Whip Hubley), Wolfman (Barry Tubb) and me, Iceman, on the other.”

It’s important to state that Val and Tom have zero bad blood between them to this day. “It was fun to play up the conflict between our characters, but in reality, I’ve always thought of Tom as a friend and we’ve always supported each other.” Val said.

“He was a sweetheart. We were all quite rowdy — me and all the real flyboys and the actors — so I actually felt a little sorry for him cause we all had time to play and date the cute extras and zoom around San Diego in muscle cars,” Val said. “But Tom was always in some scene and never go to play with us …”

As the box office numbers didn’t lie, we thought the on screen reunion was perfect.

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