Val Kilmer made another public appearance, this time attending an art show at his own art studio on Friday. The 59-year-old Top Gun 2 star attended the GLAM Art Exhibition at his HelMel studios in Los Angeles, posing with artist Tamie Adaya and sporting a longer hairstyle than fans have seen recently. He also wore his signature scarf over his throat following a cancer battle that required throat surgery.
In 2017, Kilmer told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview alongside his kids Mercedes, 28, and Jack, 24, that he had been battling throat cancer for two years. In the interview, Kilmer was described as the cancer having had “taken its toll” on him and a subsequent trachea procedure having made his voice raspy and leaving him short of breath.
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Kilmer credited his Christian Scientist faith as well as chemotherapy with helping him fight the cancer. He said that during the two years of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, he learned not to take himself too seriously.
“I was too serious,” he told THR. “I’d get upset when things like Oscars and recognition failed to come my way.”
Since opening up about his cancer, Kilmer has been spotted out and about in public, including at a private screening of Jack’s film and out at lunch with Mercedes during the summer last year.
He’s also been seen out at events more frequently, including a fundraiser he hosted in June for his TwainMania Foundation, which he created to education children on author Mark Twain’s legacy.
He has even continued to work, appearing as the title character in the 2017 horror film The Super, and briefly appearing in the Michael Fassbender movie The Snowman that same year. He also had a role in the 2018 Iranian-American comedy 1st Born.
He is set to appear alongside Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel to the 1986 classic, which will hit theaters on June 26, 2020. He was vocal of his support for making a Top Gun sequel, and even told fans on Facebook back in 2015 that he would say yes to playing Iceman again even before reading a script.
“We will all miss [original director] Tony Scott one of the kindest gentlemen I’ve ever met in the film biz, but let’s fire up some fighter jets again,” Kilmer wrote at the time. “This is a long way off so calm down. This has been talked about for a long long time and being offered a role is very different from doing a role. I jumped the gun with my post. I jumped the topgun… An innocent mistake. It was just such a wonderful phone call with my agent…”
Photo credit: Tasia Wells / Contributor
