How Val Kilmer's 'Creepy Art' Has Helped The 'Top Gun' Star, 62, Come Back Strong After Beating Cancer
- Val Kilmer, 62, hits headlines after appearing in the release of Top Gun: Maverick the highly anticipated sequel to the 1986 classic Top Gun.
- The actor has also leaned into and publicly displayed his passion for creating artwork by joining the NFT (non-fungible token) world to sell his digital works.
- And though he originally kept his cancer battle out of the public eye, Kilmer eventually shared more about his throat cancer journey through interviews, his memoir, I'm Your Huckleberry, and his documentary, Val.
- As a result of his successful cancer treatments, Val now uses a voice box to talk. For Top Gun: Maverick, his Iceman voice was reconstructed using A.I.
Kilmer, 62, is beyond proud to be a part of Top Gun: Maverick the highly anticipated sequel to the 1986 classic Top Gun. And the film has truly established itself as a fan-favorite over the past few weeks after notching $29.6 million just over the weekend and becoming the 50th film in history to make more than $1 billion at the global box office not accounting for inflation.
Read More"He was calling it Top Gun: Maverick. Well, Tom was Maverick, but Maverick's nemesis was Iceman. The two went together like salt and pepper," Kilmer wrote in his memoir. "It didn't matter that the producers didn't contact me. As the Temptations sang in the heyday of Motown soul, 'ain't too proud to beg.'"View this post on Instagram
After reaching out to producers, Kilmer got his beloved part back. And the iconic actor hasn’t stopped there. He’s also delved into his passion for creating unusual (some would say creepy) artwork by joining the NFT (non-fungible token) world to sell his digital works.
In partnership with Galaxis (formerly Ether Cards), Kilmer founded Kamp Kilmer a virtual space that promotes the collaboration of artists of any medium from all over the world.
“I wanted to create an enclave in which all of us bohemians and pirates, actors, poets, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, and academics can congregate, connect, and make things with me,” Kilmer said in a press release. “I searched for the ability to enable projects that could evolve and continue beyond my lifetime, all of our lifetimes. I asked: what if the project could run autonomously for generations to come? I call this realm KAMP KILMER.”
Kamp Kilmer is where his newest NFT collaboration entitled "Gob-man Wuz Here" lives. It serves as the first collaborative piece in the Kamp Kilmer Goblin Project.
View this post on Instagram
The digital piece, which was a collaborative effort with artist and film director Remo Camerota, features a green goblin wearing a batman mask as an odd to Kilmer’s role as Batman in the 1995 film Batman Forever.
“I am grateful to Galaxis for enabling my vision and creating a first-of-its-kind art engine that utilizes cutting-edge blockchain technology that enables the creation of collections of collaborative, dynamic, continuously evolving digital art pieces,” Kilmer said. “Something that was simply not possible prior to the Web3, crypto world.”
Val's Cancer Journey
Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015 but didn't speak publicly about the disease until 2017. He wasn't considering conventional treatment at first, thinking his Christian Science faith would heal the tumors, but he eventually agreed to undergo chemotherapy for the sake of his children Mercedes, 30, and Jack, 26, whom he had with his ex-wife, English actress Joanne Whalley, 60.
Kilmer also underwent a tracheotomy a surgical procedure that connects the windpipe to a hole in the front of the neck which greatly impacted his speaking voice.
And though he originally kept his cancer battle out of the public eye, Kilmer eventually shared more about his journey through interviews, his memoir, I'm Your Huckleberry, and his documentary, Val, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.
"I have been healed of cancer for over four years now, and there has never been any recurrence," he wrote in I'm Your Huckleberry. "I am so grateful."
Understanding Throat Cancer
Throat cancer is a type of head and neck cancer where cancerous cells begin in the throat, voice box or tonsils. Some of the main risk factors for this disease include smoking, drinking alcohol, a diet lacking in fruits or vegetables, acid reflux disease and the human papillomavirus (HPV). So, one way to decrease the chances of developing the disease is to get the HPV vaccine.
The American Cancer Society recommends that boys and girls get the HPV vaccine between ages 9 and 12. The organization also stresses that teens and young adults through age 26 who are not already vaccinated should get the HPV vaccine as soon as possible. Dr. Jessica Geiger, a medical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, explains the link between throat cancer and HPV in a previous interview with SurvivorNet.
Get the Facts: What Do We Know About HPV-Linked Throat Cancer?
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