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“I was buzzed about being Batman but hardly for artistic reasons,” Kilmer wrote. “With two franchises going—Batman and The Saint—I could start an artists’ community, write poetry and plays, and become the wild auteur I saw as my destiny.”
However, after accepting the Batman Forever role without reading the script, his illusions about playing the Caped Crusader were quickly shattered. He ultimately surmised the part is a trap, “and the trap was the suit.” Weighing close to a hundred pounds and essentially deafening him, the suit left Kilmer feeling isolated and looking for solace from the special chaise lounge they set up for him.
“The chair became my friend, my crush, and my only comfort,” said Kilmer. “Oh, how I adored the chaise longue!” It allowed him to recline without having to bend over in all that rubber. The world’s alleged greatest martial artist couldn’t even lean back in a typical La-Z-Boy. Noting the other best part about the role being “half the Hollywood community” bringing their kids to set to meet him in costume, Kilmer otherwise has few positive thoughts about the production. In fact, it was watching those kids where he realized they didn’t care who was in the suit, remarking he might as well have been Betty White.
Kilmer’s struggles with acting through the costume apparently informed some of his tension with director Joel Schumacher—whom he speaks of otherwise in glowing terms in his memoir—and his decision to not continue with the role. The documentary, in fact, is more explicit in getting him to concede he chose to not do another Batman film after Batman Forever because of that experience, as opposed to scheduling conflicts (Kilmer cites Heat on the page as part of the reason he was unavailable for Batman & Robin, even though Heat filmed nearly two years before B&R went before cameras).
As for Batman Forever itself, Kilmer is affectionately dismissive of its quality. In one telling anecdote, he recalled agreeing to show the movie to his children a few years after its release, but he had to drive into town from his New Mexico ranch to buy it because he didn’t own a VHS copy in his home. After the film started, his children quietly shuffled out one-by-one within the first 20 minutes, and Kilmer found himself watching the rest of the movie alone “like a chump.”
His review? “I mean, it’s so bad, it’s almost good.”
Source: Den of Geek
