Last week, Val Kilmer died at the age of 65. In addition to credits like The Doors, Top Gun, Tombstone and Heat, the actor was also well known for his sole outing as Gotham City’s Caped Crusader in Batman Forever. Drew Barrymore was one of Kilmer’s co-stars on the 1995 flick, and as someone who’s unironically a fan of Forever (ok, maybe there’s a smidge of irony), it was touching hearing the actress talking about her experience working with him.
Kilmer came up while The Drew Barrymore Show’s title host was speaking with Kevin Bacon, who was plugging his TV series The Bondsman (which premiered just a few days ago on the 2025 TV schedule) and also worked with Kilmer on a play called The Slab Boys. The two briefly Bacon’s movie Flatliners, which was directed by Joel Schumacher, who also helmed Batman Forever. That prompted Barrymore to say:
I was friends with Joel Schumacher, the director, who I thought of this morning because it was he and Val Kilmer that pulled me into Batman Forever. And Val Kilmer was so nice to me. So nurturing and kind and safe, which was a very important thing for me.
Drew Barrymore starred in Batman Forever, the “good" assistant for Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face, while Debi Mazar played Spice, the “bad” assistant. Barrymore and Val Kilmer shared screen time when Bruce met Sugar, who was posing as Edward Nygma’s date, a party that the man secretly known as The Riddler was hosting for the debut of his brainwave device called The Box. Thanks to some trickery on Sugar’s part, Bruce’s mind was exposed to the Box, allowing Riddler and Two-Face to later learn that he was Batman.
After Barrymore recalled her experience on Batman Forever, Kevin Bacon observed that the safe environment she was talking about was “probably not that common in those days,” to which she responded:
Yeah, I was like, ‘Nobody wants anything from me, they want things for me.’ Which I thought was really interesting.
Drew Barrymore’s comment on Val Kilmer follows Jim Carrey’s, who played Riddler in Batman Forever and called the Batman actor a “generational talent.” Outside of the DC Comics space, Tom Cruise paid tribute to his Top Gun costar during Paramount Pictures’ presentation at CinemaCon, and Glen Powell, who met Kilmer while working on Top Gun: Maverick, called him “incredible.” As far as Batman goes, Kilmer described playing the role as “isolating,” and he left the character behind when he realized it didn’t matter who was wearing the cape and cowl.
As a result, George Clooney took over playing Bruce Wayne for Batman & Robin, which… well, there’s a reason he keeps apologizing for that performance. You can stream those Batman movies alongside many others, both live-action and animated, with a Max subscription.
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