Val Kilmer Talks Friendship With Tom Cruise After Top Gun

“I always saw Tom as a friend and we always supported each other.”

Iceman and Maverick had a nasty fight in Top Gunan action film released in 1986 in theaters and quickly becoming a cult classic – it will return tonight on W9. But if the two pilots were rivals on screen, behind the scenes, the two stars of the film, Val Kilmer And Tom Cruisewere far from hating each other.

This is what the incredible documentary essentially suggested. Valleyshown in Cannes in May 2021 before being broadcast on Arte, just before the duo reunites for a very moving scene of Top Gun 2.

The star of The Doors and of Batman Forever confides his experience in Top Gunrevealing personal videos he shot during production. He also recounts his personal memories and how he developed the character of Lieutenant Tom “Iceman” Kazansky:

“On paper, in the script, there was very little about the character of Iceman. So I tried to make it real. I imagined a story for him, where he had a father who ignored him and, therefore, was driven by the need to be perfect in every way. This obsession with perfection is what made him so arrogant.”

Top Gun Maverick: Behind the scenes of the poignant scene between Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise

Val Kilmer also says he played “intentionally about the rivalry between Tom's character and mine off-screen. What happened on set was that the actors ended up forming two separate camps. You had Team Maverick and Goose on one side, and Slider, Hollywood, Wolfman and me, Iceman, on the other. It was fun to play the conflict between our characters! But in real life, I was never in conflict with Tom. I always saw him as a friend and we always supported each other.”

Here is the trailer for Top Gun first of the name, to be seen again tonight on television:

Tom Cruise – Top Gun (1986): “Maverick thinks he's a star”