Val Kilmer Steps Out with His Lookalike Son After Being Cast in the 'Top Gun' Sequel
By Mike Miller
Val Kilmer is returning to the big screen in the upcoming Top Gun sequel, but all the attention this week was on his 23-year-old son, actor Jack Kilmer.
The Heat star, 58, stepped out with Jack at a private screening of his son’s new film Carte Blanche. The duo, who share an uncanny likeness, posed for pictures together alongside the film’s director, Eva Dolezalova at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday.
The film tells the story of a young actor who is suddenly launched into stardom as the lead in a major movie franchise. “Attending a high-profile Hollywood function, he comes across a mysterious man from his past, which begins his downward spiral as he is pushed to the brink of his sanity,” Dolezalova explained in the film’s tagline.
Meanwhile, Kilmer will return as hotshot fighter pilot Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick alongside his costar in the original, Tom Cruise, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed.
Kilmer’s comeback role in the film follows what has been a mysterious Hollywood hiatus for the actor.
His health issues first became apparent in January 2015, when a spokesperson told PEOPLE that he was rushed to the hospital “for a possible tumor.” Soon after, he took to Facebook to deny having a tumor, saying only that he “had a complication.”
After denying the illness for years, Kilmer finally opened up about his cancer recovery to The Hollywood Reporter in December 2017 in an interview alongside his children with his ex-wife Joanne Whalley: Mercedes, 26, and Jack, 22.
The article revealed that the actor’s two-year fight with throat cancer had “taken its toll” on the family and noted that Kilmer had undergone a procedure on his trachea which made his voice raspy and left him short of breath.
Kilmer credited his Christian Scientist faith in helping with his recovery and has undergone chemotherapy, according to THR.
Top Gun: Maverick is scheduled for release on July 12, 2019.
