It doesn’t take much thinking for Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang stars Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer to come with what they didn’t like about working with each other, and at all comes down to that scene in which they share a kiss.
“He smelled like the breath of a jackal,” offered Downey. “I don’t know why he saved jackal breath for our kissing scene.”
Kilmer had his own issues with Downey’s lip-lock: “The tongue. He smokes, he chain smokes. No breath mints.”
But as much as they seemed to delight in endlessly trading one-liners and tagging on each other–the two actors were in the same room for their Hollywood.com sit-down–quickly showed off their palpable mutual affection and respect. In the film, the directorial debut of screenwriter Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), Downey plays a one-time petty thief with a checkered past who suddenly finds himself up for a Hollywood role and teamed with Kilmer, a tough-as-nails private detective-turned-technical advisor who also happens to be gay. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is Black’s loving and clever crime noir half-tribute, half-pastiche, which also adroitly skewers the conventions of the kind of buddy action flicks his scripts in the 1980s and 1990s helped popularize, and Downey and Kilmer attacked their quirky characters with gusto. But let them tell you:
“Val avoided the pitfall that would have been almost impossible for me to not fall into,” explained Downey, “which is: the camera is running, you are Gay Perry, and how can you not camp it up? But when he did it, was realistic.”
Kilmer also has praise for Downey, as much as a person as an actor. “I always like a good laugh and Robert is very, very funny,” said the actor. “One of my favorite things about Robert is his observations. We’ll sit with someone and have dinner, and the thing that he sees in that person, their character–and I was sitting there just as long as he was—is invariably interesting and entertaining. And he usually says it in an interesting way. I had a party in London, and I asked Robert if he would mind if I invited Mickey Rourke and he said ‘No, I don’t mind. He put a hit out on me once, but you can invite him.’ Because of a lady.”
Which makes for a nice segue to the elephant that’s always in the room—on in this case, two elephants. Downey’s struggles with drug addiction are well-documented, and while the recently wed actor has been living clean (minus those ever-present cigarettes), working responsibly and generally proving again and again that his talent and love of his profession has ultimately eclipsed his demons. But still, casting Downey has left studio executives’ knees knocking, fearing that a relapse will wreck havoc on their multimillion-dollar productions—to the extent that Downey has even had to pony up his own salary to cover his own insurance during production. And then there’s Kilmer, whose reportedly imperious on-set attitude has earned the enmity of his directors and co-star more than once.
So with two reputed bad boys on board, how did Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang ever get made in the first place?
Black tells the tale of how each actor found their way into the film, produced by Joel Silver, the action maestro behind The Matrix, Die Hard and Black’s Lethal Weapon. “Downey was engaged to Susan Levin, who is Joel’s right hand producer. We would always see him in the office and I would point him out and I’d say ‘What’s he doing?’” The actor was, at the time, shooting Silver’s Gothika opposite Halle Berry.
“He was funny and sharp and a really interesting kid who I thought had a great future, but he had weird things going on in his head too,” said Silver. “When Mel [Gibson] called me and said, ‘Look, this guy is clean now and focused,’ and everyone was trying to help him, it was time to help him.”
[PAGEBREAK]When Gothika wrapped, Black asked Downey to read some of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang’s dialogue for him. “And as he said the lines for the first time, just reading them cold, I felt like I typed them right into his mouth,” explained Black. “It was so perfect that we just locked it right there.”
With Downey on board, the film was a go with a modest $15 million financing, but the studio had Black and Silver considering adding a star with serious box office clout to make the film more of blockbuster contender. “Let’s get Harrsion Ford, or who else is really big? Someone to play Gay Perry that’s stratospheric, and then we can make an $80 million version of this,” said Black. “That went on far too long, like eight months or so. Finally Joel and I looked at each other, and to his credit said ‘Let’s just make this movie for $15 million and get two really good actors. We’ve got one and let’s not worry about making a big extravaganza.’
That’s when Kilmer–fresh off a film, dying to do a comedy and seeming perfect for the part–was cast. “I’ve tried working with Val before,” said Silver. “I’ve always been a big fan of Val’s. Jim Morrison, things that he’s done that are so incredible. I’d just love to see him keep working. If he can find a way to get through it, it’s going to be great for him too.”
“Now of course picture Joel and I looking at each other again and saying ‘Okay, we needed two great actors, but these two great actors? Robert Downey and Val Kilmer?” laughed Black. Given both stars’ checkered histories, more studio nail-biting ensued, but Black says the execs were more nervous about “my ability as a first-time director as to deal with these two personalities. You know what happens if they act up? Will Shane go cry in the corner? Or tug on Joel Silver’s sleeve and say ‘Daddy, Daddy?’ I never had a problem with it.”
The actors are open and introspective about the reputations that preceded them. “It’s just like Joel Silver says” ‘It isn’t show pleasure, its show business,’” said Downey. “It never occurred to me, particularly after I did Chaplin, that there was this 18-month window where I wasn’t supposed to smoke bowls and watch the History Channel. I was supposed to plan the next big thing. They say good work and good friends is what sustains you. I guess it was that thing, too, of the narcissism–of wanting to act like it wasn’t that important to me and I didn’t care. And also having the tendency to like to check out and anesthetize myself. Between the two of those, it’s like you’re not firing on all cylinders, and it’s not that kind of party. It’s not a rat-race, it is a road rally for sure.”
Kilmer’s a bit cagier about his quirks, but acknowledges that he, too, has changed. “I am older so I am not as…I was very ambitious about acting when I was younger. Now that I know how to do it better. Now I’m really trying not to be blunt. I’m focusing on being a business man. I want to be consistent an actor. I’ve always made strange choices. Having said that last year I wanted the same thing and I did a musical in LA and then I did a play in London, so maybe I’ll just keep making strange choices but I would like to be regarded as [reliable]. I’ve been a reliable money-maker for my employers. I’ve made over a billion dollars since I started acting.”
As it happens, with all the potential stromclouds that could’ve gathered, the moviemaking experience was by all accounts as sunny as could be, and the result is a fast, funny, knowing film fueled by Downey and Kilmer’s unorthodox anti-action hero characterizations. “I think it’s difficult and unfair for people to imagine that they are supposed to relate to these unflappable heroes,” said Downey of the typical action fare. “The ideals have been pretty high. Post-War stuff, even our Dads seem like these guys who were just tougher and cooler and saw more. More capable than we were, and it’s not that kind of party.”
Kilmer said his character is “not either a bad guy or a good guy. He’s a little jaded now. He was a good detective, but now he’s got this nice niche, like technical advisors do. I had one great one on a movie and one not-so-great one that were gun experts. The good one has probably made a million bucks now and he’s only been in the movies for 10 years, having really killed people and all that.” He also conjured up some real inspiration for Perry’s non-stereotypical homosexuality. “I have a very dear friend who is gay and you wouldn’t know it–just his style, he’s a meticulous, very well-mannered and gay. I thought about him a little bit.”
Of course, despite all of the wonderful working experiences and their obvious chemistry both on screen and off, Downey’s growing a bit tired of talking about how famously the duo got along. “Wouldn’t it be great if we never spoke?” Downey mused. “That’s the Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang version–after everything, I go ‘You are a son of a bitch.’ He goes ‘You blow me.’”
