Why Val Kilmer Only Made One Batman Movie

• Val Kilmer, who died of pneumonia at 65 on Tuesday, April 2, famously portrayed Batman/Bruce Wayne in 1995’s Batman Forever.
• He’s said over the years that he did not enjoy his experience.
• “It’s not about Batman. There is no Batman,” he once said.

Val Kilmer, who died of pneumonia at 65 on Tuesday, April 2, is one of the handful of Hollywood actors over the decades to have portrayed Batman on the big screen. But unlike many stars who have played Gotham’s superhero, Kilmer only ever made one Batman movie with 1995’s Batman Forever — and he did not necessarily enjoy the experience. 

In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Kilmer recalled a day on Batman Forever‘s set when billionaire investor Warren Buffett visited with his grandchildren. As Kilmer told the outlet, Buffett’s family wanted to see Batman, but they did not want to speak to Kilmer, even after he spent extra time on set while in costume to meet them.

“That’s why it’s so easy to have five or six Batmans,” Kilmer said, after noting that the children wanted to wear Batman’s mask and ride in the Batmobile but not actually spend time with the actor behind the mask. “It’s not about Batman. There is no Batman.” 

Kilmer portrayed Batman in Warner Bros. third live-action Batman movie, which served as a follow-up to Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman and 1992’s Batman Returns, both of which starred Michael Keaton in the lead role. Joel Schumacher directed Batman Forever, and Kilmer starred in the movie alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman and Chris O’Donnell. 

Kilmer additionally offered insight into his time making Batman Forever in the 2021 documentary Val, in which he admitted he accepted the role without reading the movie’s script or knowing who director Schumacher was.

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“Whatever boyhood excitement I had was crushed by the reality of the Batsuit,” Kilmer said in that documentary, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Yes, every boy wants to be Batman. They actually want to be him…not necessarily play him in a movie.”

In that documentary, Kilmer described wearing his Batman costume as physically restrictive and said that he had trouble communicating with others on set because he could not hear well through the suit. “I think it made no difference what I was doing. I tried to be like an actor on a soap opera,” he said of his performance in the film, per THR.

Filmmaker Schumaker, who died in 2020 at 80, famously described Kilmer as “childish and impossible” in a 1996 interview with Entertainment Weekly and claimed that he and the actor once “had a physical pushing match” while on set.

Schumacher went on to make one more Batman movie with 1997’s Batman & Robin, but George Clooney replaced Kilmer in the lead role.