Val Kilmer Quotes & Sayings

One out of 100 citizens of the U.S. is going to prison, and it's not that the system is making criminals, it's that it's making criminals better criminals. We're breeding them like rats and it has to change. — Val Kilmer

If you play Mark Twain and he's not funny, you are definitely not playing Mark Twain. That was the biggest challenge, in some ways. Writing and performing jokes that can come out of that brilliant delivery system he constructed: the friendly, avuncular truth-teller. — Val Kilmer

The trick to being a good actor is getting so involved in your character that the camera disappears, the 50 bored guys eating doughnuts disappear, friends disappear. To get to that point when you don't have to think about it, you're just acting and reacting in those circumstances. — Val Kilmer

Once is more than generous for any lifetime. — Val Kilmer

I saw the horizon. It's out there. And though I may not ever be able to touch it, it's worth reaching for. — Val Kilmer

I love acting, and doing it well matters to me. — Val Kilmer

I was in love with Tina Goodman since I was three and her parents came popping out of the trash cans. I think it made a big impression on me. — Val Kilmer

I was looking for projects, as you always are, and I read this scene ... and I'm in the Hollywood Hills. So I thought, 'This is interesting.' You have this setup that seems to be based in some reality and you can only wonder where Black's going to go with this. — Val Kilmer

I liked being Doc Holliday. It's fun to be insightful and aristocratic, to stand up for your friend and make sacrifices for him. It was fun to be arrogant like he was and have the goods to back it up. He was a very noble character. Although, let's not forget, he did kill a lot of people. — Val Kilmer

My children have absolutely no interest in my fame. They're very sophisticated, and they have a spiritual perspective on material things because we go to church. — Val Kilmer

My first girlfriend in high school, I had a girlfriend in grade school, but my first girlfriend in high school was Mare Winningham, very fine actress. — Val Kilmer

I never had a business plan. I did, actually - I'm lying. My business plan was to get lucky, and I did; that was great. And then my second business plan was to get lucky again, and there, I faltered. — Val Kilmer

I don't believe in death. I think it's just a state of mind. — Val Kilmer

It's a really weird thing, modern divorce. I found out I was getting divorced on television. That was kind of weird. — Val Kilmer

I think part of my reputation has to do with the difficult roles I've played. Actors do tend to get identified with their characters. — Val Kilmer

Acting is not a science. Anybody who believes that their success exists in relation to their goals is deluding themselves; unless you think of a career in terms of financial goals. I have nothing against Tom Cruise, but he must have a large capacity to deal with the business side of movies. — Val Kilmer

Daryl Hannah likes to goof around with fashion, but she does have pretty impeccable taste. — Val Kilmer

I'm a character actor, but I look like a leading man. — Val Kilmer

It was very serious and I wanted to do something really different so there was this comedy called TOP SECRET. — Val Kilmer

A hundred million dollars in the art world is a substantial amount of cash to do anything. — Val Kilmer

I don't make any pretense about being normal. I'm not. — Val Kilmer

The first play I saw was a Samuel Beckett play which was great. — Val Kilmer

If you think that by threatening me you can get me to do what you want ... well, that's where you're right. But - and I am only saying this because I care - there's a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing. — Val Kilmer

There was such a relationship between the buffalo and the American Indian - the Indians would eat them, live inside their pelts, use every part of the body. There was almost no separation between the people and the animals. — Val Kilmer

There are lots of actors who are awful people, but nobody talks about them being awful because they've made billions. — Val Kilmer

With legitimate journalists I've always had a great time - I've never gone out of my way to court the press. That's probably cost me some money, but I've always had the respect of my peers. — Val Kilmer

My perception is that I've never done anything but work really hard. — Val Kilmer

I sang the songs in 'The Doors'. — Val Kilmer

I respect people who can do both careers, like Will Smith and a couple of other people who have done it, but I just don't know when they sleep. — Val Kilmer

It's fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren't actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n' roll. I've listened to 'Ziggy Stardust' as much as any rock n' roll fan - I don't really know what it's about, but it sure is fun to think about David Bowie as this mad creation. — Val Kilmer

I would probably do anything with David Mamet. He's so great. I just love his writing. — Val Kilmer

Why do women get paid less money? It doesn't make any sense. — Val Kilmer

Hollywood is wonderful, but it does eat its young. — Val Kilmer

News isn't even the truth on television. — Val Kilmer

Give me the compliments. I love compliments. I was born modest, but it wore off. — Val Kilmer

Warner Bros offered me the next Batman, and the only reason that I didn't do it was because of The Saint. — Val Kilmer

I can safely say that no one who has ever won an Oscar didn't want to win an Oscar. — Val Kilmer

When you're young, you're always concerned about how you're being seen and how you're being criticized. — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain created a new type of literature and not a lot of people can say that. Not a lot of people can say they're absolutely original and completely self-made. — Val Kilmer

There was no one around called 'Val' when I was young, so I wanted to be John or Bill. Now I like it. — Val Kilmer

A lot of old guys in movies are like cowboys - they talk like cowboys and they dress like cowboys. — Val Kilmer

I love that Bob Dylan asked me to be in the first movie he wrote. — Val Kilmer

It is a weird thing that actors have people applaud when they're done working. I still find that entertaining. — Val Kilmer

Being creative and making money in the theater is very challenging. — Val Kilmer

Warren Beatty once told me that if someone's really stuck on you, find them their next boyfriend. But I could never do that. — Val Kilmer

Acting is very immediate. — Val Kilmer

Youth is seen as everything. You don't know anything when you're young. It's great being older, just having a more balanced perspective. I wake up and realise that what seemed to be important last year no longer is. I'm increasingly grateful for every day. — Val Kilmer

Jim Thompson understood something about the serial killer before the psychology caught up to it, which is that they are detached to it and they do want to get caught. — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain is as big as America. He really is. — Val Kilmer

I don't think of my life as a cliche, but I'm a cliche eccentric. Complete with a strange name - I mean, who's named Val? How many Vals do you know? I mean, really? — Val Kilmer

Without deadlines and restrictions I just tend to become preoccupied with other things. — Val Kilmer

It seems to me that every step forward in my life has been one that brings me to a better understanding of this: that you do your thing every day the best that you can, and you approach any success at it with humility. — Val Kilmer

There are a thousand ways to play any role. — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain had a way of telling stories that shifts your consciousness away from labels. — Val Kilmer

Partly because the town is just finicky, there are strange Catch 22 clauses in the consciousness of this community and one of them was that you, I found out, you can't do a comedy unless you've just done a comedy. — Val Kilmer

I don't watch television, but I saw 'The Office' by accident. I thought it was so sophisticated, the Victorian love story, and so bold. We'd do anything, all of us, to not work in that environment, and then I'm sitting there watching hours of it. — Val Kilmer

My father was raised in the mountains of New Mexico, and he picked cotton for a dollar a day. He was working for the family from the time he was 7. — Val Kilmer

That's the joy of art - it should be dangerous and challenging but it's just art - it's safe. — Val Kilmer

Postman is a media analyst and his theory is that television doesn't influence our culture, but that it is our culture and the presidency and anything that relies on television. — Val Kilmer

Again, in Wag the Dog, war has to be declared by an act of congress. But if you go to war, you don't have to declare war. You're just at war and we did that, which is not legal. — Val Kilmer

It's the first time that I've ever had an art show based on a film, but it's a photography collage. — Val Kilmer

The audience and I have an intimacy that is, I believe, rare, most times out. — Val Kilmer

I'm going to put a museum on my ranch and people keep saying, 'That's a huge idea.' Yeah, it's big, but not bigger than the average big movie. A hundred million dollars in the art world is a substantial amount of cash to do anything. That's maybe a big gallery's total sales for a given year. — Val Kilmer

Peter Sellers was just a brilliant actor, and also comedic. — Val Kilmer

I've been very fortunate and met the guys that have become, basically, philosophers and have a kind of sensibility about life that's very precious. — Val Kilmer

Life is precious, and when someone dies it's an opportunity to realise how precious it is. My brother drowned when I was 17. He was 15. I think I grew from that. My father didn't. It really crushed him. — Val Kilmer

News is something that happens that matters to you, which is not most of what we watch on television. — Val Kilmer

Performing in a live theater is absolutely unbeatable. It is something I have done my entire life and have a gift, it seems, for sharing thoughts live. — Val Kilmer

What I do for a living is listen. — Val Kilmer

It's so early do you want some coffee or something? — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain was an artist working at the highest level. He wrote a book, his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that put America on the world stage for literature. It's almost as if, if you start reading that book as a racist, you cannot finish it and still be a racist. — Val Kilmer

I live on a ranch that's larger than Manhattan. That's a weird circumstance. — Val Kilmer

There's nothing good about divorce. — Val Kilmer

You can ask anyone who knows me, I've never said a racist or prejudiced thing in my life. — Val Kilmer

I fell in love with the land and with the very old fashioned idea of leaving a physical legacy for my children. A stunning place, with a magnificent forest of trees, and a magnificent river. — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard. — Val Kilmer

Where [a]can you trust your own thoughts and your own intentions? Everywhere, hopefully, but it isn't always that easy. Sometimes, you have to help yourself along. — Val Kilmer

If you look up the definition of news in the dictionary, it isn't what you watch on TV. — Val Kilmer

I've never been that comfortable talking about myself or about acting. — Val Kilmer

I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates when he said ... I drank what? — Val Kilmer

I never cultivated a personality. Almost everyone who is really famous has cultivated a personality. — Val Kilmer

A wonderful but kind of a terrible truth about acting is that you actually get to a point where you become content with an impossible task: it is really impossible to properly prepare. You kind of have to start over every time. — Val Kilmer

Interesting characters are troubled characters. The only problem I've had in my business is very few people - unfortunately, very vocal - confusing the difficult role that I play with me. I play these guys, but I'm not like them. I've been accused of bein. — Val Kilmer

I have two children and they're young yet but all of the children that I know really inspire me. — Val Kilmer

Hollywood's like a warehouse. It's just a place that you go. What's interesting in the warehouse has to do with the creative people. — Val Kilmer

I just don't think I've ever been comfortable at public functions and selling myself as an entity. — Val Kilmer

I learned a long time ago that place matters to me, on many levels, and maybe more than it should, but it is generally counter-productive for me to resist it. — Val Kilmer

Most films made about the future acquiesce toward death, and I don't want to be told how to define my future. — Val Kilmer

The Secret Service is a strange group. They don't really have a leader. It's not set up like a military. Each one is supposed to be able to act like a leader when something comes up. — Val Kilmer

Do what you like to do so well that someone will pay you wages for it. — Val Kilmer

I have never taken my career seriously. My only ambition was to grow as an actor. — Val Kilmer

Mark Twain is a voice of truth and a voice of equality and a voice of tolerance. Which means he is a voice of love. — Val Kilmer

I'm very wary of news on television. — Val Kilmer

Well I sure had been looking for a comedy for years without any success. — Val Kilmer

I think death is just a transition to another state of consciousness. — Val Kilmer

The good reviews that people have told me about through the years haven't really helped me do my job. So it's kind of like, if your hair turns out right you want to go out, you don't just want to stay in and look in the mirror. That's kind of what reading a review is like to me; it's like reveling in something that's just one night. — Val Kilmer

We take what's shown on television as the truth, and it isn't. News isn't even the truth on television. If you look up the definition of what news is, it isn't that what we're watching on the new - it's entertainment. — Val Kilmer

My only "business plan" was to get lucky. — Val Kilmer

Unless a Western's made money - doesn't matter who made the money, doesn't matter what the subject is - if the last one didn't make any money, you can't make another one for a four-year period. Westerns more than any genre. — Val Kilmer

If you're in a hit movie, it's good to be in another hit movie straight away. — Val Kilmer