On the mend. Tom Cruise gave an update on the state of Val Kilmer’s health after the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang actor’s cancer battle.
“He’s doing really well,” the Mission: Impossible – Fallout actor, 56, told Extra on Wednesday, July 11. Cruise also mentioned it was “special” to be working with his Top Gun costar again on the iconic film’s sequel.
Kilmer long denied he was suffering from throat cancer, even after Michael Douglas suggested his The Ghost and the Darkness costar was ill and wished him well. “I love Michael Douglas but he is misinformed,” the 58-year-old actor wrote on Facebook in November 2016. “The last time I spoke to him was almost two years ago, when I asked him for a referral for a specialist to get a diagnosis for a lump in my throat, which prevented me from continuing a tour of my play CITIZEN TWAIN. I ended up using a team at UCLA and have no cancer whatsoever.”
The Batman Forever star ultimately confirmed his health struggle in April 2017 and addressed Douglas’ comments again. “He was probably trying to help me cause press probably asked where I was these days, and I did have a healing of cancer, but my tongue is still swollen altho healing all the time,” he said during a Reddit AMA. “Because I don’t sound my normal self yet people think I may still be under the weather.”
It was announced in June that Kilmer would reprise his role in Top Gun: Maverick alongside Cruise’s titular character. The actors played rivals Iceman and Maverick, respectively, in the 1986 original. The Jerry Maguire star confirmed that he began filming the sequel on May 31.
Kilmer teased his return during his April 2017 Reddit AMA: “Hell yes. What a hoot it will be…”
