VAL KILMER - from an article by Joy Johns.

Friday, February 21, 2001

Val Kilmer sat on a chair in Warehouse 21 and answered questions from an assembled group of over 50 people who frequent W21. He talked about his youth, his career and other assorted topics. It was a most informative evening for the young people in attendance. But, did things run smoothly - without a hitch? When dealing with this sort of environment, the most unexpected events can sometimes unfold. Ana Gallegos y Reinhardt, the executive director of Warehouse 21, gives some insights into what was going on behind the scenes:

A Face to Face Conversation with Val Kilmer
 

The Chair
"Initially, I had a black stool for him to sit on the stage. He mentioned that he preferred not to sit on that particular type of chair. He looked around the room and noticed the orange metal chairs. It was obvious that there was an uneasiness about the orange chairs and soon after he remarked that he wouldn't like to sit on one of those either as it reminded him of school. So, as the audience was waiting, I had one of the teens (Carib Guerra) bring in the vintage velvet fuchsia chair from the back office. I chuckled as it was a corny looking chair, but felt Val would appreciate the difference in comfort. So, as Caribe is trying to quickly squeeze the chair through the hallway, I think he chipped one of the legs. All my mind was thinking about was a chair disaster.

Val at Warehouse 21"After an hour of dialogue with the audience, Val did gracefully slide down with the chair as the leg broke! 'How about a 5 minute break?' he stated and took off to the boys' bathroom. Boy, if you enter that room, one is mighty brave!

"Val returned and all these teens surrounded him seeking his John Hancock. So, guess what, he eventually landed in one of those orange chairs.......... "

Originally, the plan was for this interview session to be broadcast on the teen-produced radio program "Ground Zero" but unfortunately an unexpected glitch blew this idea.

"The night we had Val, we had set up to record him for our Ground Zero radio youth show. Then, one of the kids pulled the plug accidentally right as Val got on stage. We thought it was recording but it did not take."

One might wonder how exactly Val Kilmer came to be involved with Warehouse 21 in the first place. Ana Gallegos y Reinhardt details,

"I met Val at a local restaurant named Maria's one Sunday night. I approached him and asked him to sign my take out box. I mentioned to him that he was at my house in October of last year (which I thought was him, but did not get informed until later). He knew the young man that was living here who was doing a spray can mural at his house. He was aware of W21 as he had gone to a concert with Chris once upon a time. I spoke of my interest for him to come and meet some kids before I left on a trip to Washington D.C. The following week, he called and he popped in at the Warehouse one afternoon. As it was a spontaneous gesture, the kids were in awe."

As you can see, the interview session with Val at W21 that was covered by the newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, is only one of Mr. Kilmer's visits to the teen arts center. Ms. Gallegos y Reinhardt describes another such occasion which occurred when a group of Christian Science teens from California were visiting Santa Fe:

"We talked about the youth coming from California and that perhaps we could get youth from W21 involved at a question and answer session at the local Christian Science Church. As most of the kids we work with are not church goers, we made arrangements at W21 to host his visitors and members of his church at a Sunday afternoon lunch and small entertainment scene. We had a local youth band play and a few native american drummers perform on our small stage. After that, everyone went to the church to have a conversation with Val.

"It was a special afternoon as the back drop of the church had 'Love' on the wall. Val was somewhat quiet spoken and related his stories of morality and acting with the small audience.
"It was a wonderful day and I am honored to have shared that experience with a man filled with prayer."

Mr. Kilmer was quick to notice this. Before going out on stage at W21 on February 21, Val commented, "It's very clear that kids know they're safe here. There's trust here."

So what exactly is Warehouse 21 and what do they do there? It's a teen arts center that serves many purposes. Its name is derived from the fact that it was originally a warehouse and the 21 has two meaningful references: that it is designed to accommodate people up to the age of 21 and that they're striding boldly into the twenty-first century. Ms. Gallagos y Reinhardt outlines some of the aspects that make W21 what it is:

"Helping youth believe in themselves and helping them to learn to be accountable is a way for them to feel stronger in themselves. They can make a difference and contribute back into our community if given a chance. It requires a major commitment and dedication to fulfill these goals which includes being accessible, affordable and alive.

"Our success is allowing young people to be responsible and to encourage them to be accountable for their own experiences which is then their own success. Last year, I worked with a staff of six internally and 20 professional educators who provided arts education to over 700 teenagers. 539 workshops were presented after school and during the summer months. Over 64 special events were conducted which served over 4000 people of all ages. Events produced by youth included theater productions, art exhibitions, poetry readings, youth concerts, radio shows, newspaper publications, comedy nights, low rider car shows and over 30 collaborations with other art organizations, schools, colleges and social service agencies. A total of 45 community service youth were involved from both the secondary schools and Teen Court. Over 60 adult artists were involved with special projects and a total of 437 teen artists.

"Creating a creative mix where young people learn, present, perform, exhibit, curate, design and teach programs is very rewarding. Also, blending youth from our tri-cultural community of Anglo, Hispanic and Native American youth can be stimulating in that they can work together in a mutual setting and bypass cultural barriers that exist in society."

"America's youth make up one-quarter of the nation's population and the entirety of its future. Many are fortunate and many are not. Poverty, poor health, teen pregnancy and school failure cloud our kids in every community. Young people in the U.S. have a one in five chance of living in poverty and their chances of not graduating are greater than one in four. Yet, the needs of our youth continue to go unmet and are often ignored.

All of the staff at Warehouse 21 seem to share the same vision: that of reaching out to youth and truly making a difference. In conversations with a couple of the staff, I couldn't help but be bowled over by their honest, sincere, enthusiastic dedication to their work.
Max Friedenberg outlines his involvement with Warehouse 21:

"I lead The Promoters Circle, a youth collective which produces live music shows for all ages. We meet on the first and third Fridays of every month. The kids produce, book, manage and do live sound for their own shows. I also teach the occasional class and maintain the web site. A few summers ago, I was a lead artist in a Community Youth Mural Project which involved painting murals on the inside of city buses. Ana hired me as a staff member as a result. I couldn't have asked for a better job. There is nothing more rewarding than working with, or in many senses, working for, youth. You can't really teach art; there's no right or wrong. All you can do is just mentor, guide and help youth actualize their vision."

Angela Marino, the program director of W21, epitomizes the spirit of co-operation that exists at the center when she describes her job:

"I was organizing a festival in 1998 which collaborated with W21 in order to host a fantastic theater company from Puerto Rico, Teatro Demos. I really enjoyed working with the whole crew at W21 and so when Ana Gallegos (the Director of W21) offered me a job, I was happy to accept. I do a little bit of everything. Seriously, I plan programs and clean toilets! The 'homey' nature of W21 comes from a very co-operative spirit among staff. We try to help each other out and we share a lot of responsibilities." Angela says that the most rewarding part of her job is "Working with people that want to explore their creativity. That is really exciting. It's amazing what comes out," while the most challenging aspect is "Trying to make all the good ideas become a reality.
Angela was present on the day of the taping of the Val Kilmer interview session with the teens and she outlines the reactions she observed at the session:

"I think it takes some time, especially for teens to get over the initial expectations of meeting someone 'famous'. So, it was interesting to see an entire process of excitement, intrigue, resentment, and then finally some way of knowing this person as just another human being."
When asked about how Val originally became interested in acting and theater, Val talked about the skits he used to do with his younger brother and then added:

Val being interviewed at Warehouse 21"The first play I saw was a Samuel Beckett play which was great. It was "The End Game." In this play it's the end of the world and this guy can't walk and the other one can't sit down and, after a while, you find out that the guy who can't stand up's parents live in these two trash cans over at the side of the stage. I was in love with Tina Goodman since I was three and her parents came popping out of the trash cans. I think it made a big impression on me. They were actors."

Val was asked what his favorite line was from TOMBSTONE and, although he couldn't choose just one line, he did admit that he had a favorite scene:

"My favorite scene got cut. My favorite thing that I did got cut. It was when Wyatt's brothers got all shot up in town. I thought - in the script anyway - it might seem odd because Doc Holliday is always present for his friend, for him not to be around while the brothers got shot up so I thought, because of the way the story was structured, it would be good if he was just too wasted to move. So it was in this scene in the bedroom where I was reciting this Coleridge poem and passed out. I liked that. It was fun to shoot people too."

The teens wanted to know whether Val enjoyed the filming of WILLOW. Val replied,
"Parts. Little people are very funny. They already know that life is weird. So that part was fun. My co-star, I ended up marrying - that was fun. We went to New Zealand and we went to Wales. All the travelling was fun but wearing the pink dress wasn't fun.

"There was this crazy guy. He did all the second unit chase scenes in INDIANA JONES. A lot of old guys in movies are like cowboys - they talk like cowboys and they dress like cowboys. He'd say, 'It's going to be great - you're going to jump on those spikes' - 'Wait, wait, I'm going to jump onto spikes?' -'Yeah, yeah!' and he'd act like we had to go right now. He would say these things that were totally insane because you'd die if you jumped on the spikes, but he would sell it in this way and it would make me see what was going to be in the movie. But he'd hypnotize me. I'd nod and say, 'Okay, yeah, drag me up and down the English countryside in a pink dress, I'll jump on the spikes then.' I just did whatever he said. I think Steven Spielberg taught him that. That was hard. I had to do it for about a week, a week in a pink dress."

One teen asked, "How did you get your first movie part?"

"I was lucky in starting professionally in acting because I'd gone to this school in New York that was a high profile school and they do these basically showcases - a lot of it - so agents come and casting people to see the actors so I got an agent before I got out of school which was just lucky and then I'd written a play in school about a West German terrorist and that got produced at the Public Theater in New York. So we graduated and went into a technical rehearsal doing this play so I had this activity going starting out which was very fortunate, particularly the play because all my classmates worked on it and to be able to go to work on something that was a good idea but became a legitimate piece of art was very exciting. It was very serious and I wanted to do something really different so there was this comedy called TOP SECRET. The directors were three guys - two brothers and a partner - I'd seen a lot of their theater in Los Angeles - they were really crazy. Did you see AIRPLANE? They're the same guys who did AIRPLANE. So I just went in and did jokes I knew they'd like because they were their jokes and they hired me. So that was how I got my first job. Pretty boring - the story anyways."

Val described the craziness of rehearsing one movie on weekends while filming another one during the week:

This was crazy. During Batman we had rehearsals for HEAT on the weekends and Michael Mann the director's great - he loves all the realism so we went into a bank once with flak jackets on under our suits and guns and the only person that knew was the bank manager. And that was an amazing feeling - being that nervous because something bad could have happened and then De Niro had a split in the back of his coat and I saw the back of his gun and I was just so nervous that he was going to get tackled or something - someone would make a citizen's arrest not recognizing him or something. But that we were doing on the weekends and then I would get a rubber suit on on Monday morning and big ears and a cape - like surreal feeling. But HEAT - playing a psychopath and guys that spend a lot of years in prison - that kind of mentality - but having to do it in a very specific period of time - it was actually good for me because I didn't get sidetracked. They're action guys - real action - that's what they get high off of, so it was really fun to be in that world - it didn't make me want to steal a car or anything. While I was driving, I was thinking about - not trying to judge the guy but this guy would just take everything and then blow it in Vegas and that's what they're addicted to - the adrenaline. Just driving this rent-a-car, imagining that it was stolen and what that makes you feel like - crash it and just leave it. It's just not anything I would think about. That's the joy of art - it should be dangerous and challenging but it's just art - it's safe. Like all the stuff they were doing around the Grammies just to have a little sound bite about Eminem. If you were asking me whether I thought he should be allowed - they were using this crazy word - to be allowed what? The right of saying how he feels. It's not my business how he wants to say it but it's sure all our business to let people - crazy questions.
"The answer never is - the only answer is to be better - not to stop Eminem. Write a better song - that's the answer. To me, Ghandi's a really inspiring character because he understood that in the structure of the world he lived in - that untouchability had to end. For an Indian to treat another Indian like they were so low that they weren't a human being is what the entire nation was suffering from England because they were being treated and used as slaves. Until he got that idea out of his mind, deeply out of his system, they couldn't improve their condition. And that's just what his understanding of love was. How do you love and not fight and make someone not kill you, beat you, rape you - how do you make them stop? And he understood how. Just don't comply. All those answers in terms of the arts mean make better art."

Val was asked if his spiritual views interfered with his career and he responded:

Kind of the other way around really. One thing in a personal way that's for me hard is that when you want to be good in a vain way or you know you're not good and you're kind of just willing to do anything to not feel like burnt toast - I have vivid memories of that kind of pain of wanting to get out of that state of mind. Sometimes drinking can do that or a drug can do that but it's not a permanent technique although millions of actors are trying to make it work as we speak. It's not a way to sustain creativity in my opinion, at least not for me. So it's always helped me to have a foundation, an ideal to strive for and goals. It's hard for me to be disciplined and plan things. Without deadlines and restrictions I just tend to become preoccupied with other things. And then you're forty and you have gray hair and bills. That was sad, wasn't it? I found a way to have a point of view that I feel strongly is my own - not adopted but a way to understand life. I was very sad...melancholy most of my youth, angry a lot and I hoped I wasn't always going to be like that. Work can be hard sometimes - acting - the arts can be hard sometimes in that way - hard to give yourself that inspiration if you don't have a job. Acting is very immediate. If you've just done a job and no one goes to see it, it doesn't take very long for people to forget your name - 'weren't you...didn't you used to be...what was that thing you did?' - like that."

When asked to talk about his perceptions of today's youth, Val commented,

"I have two children and they're young yet but all of the children that I know really inspire me. (When I was young) you couldn't talk about spirituality. Everything had to be cynical. I was shy. I always had an interest in religion and a kind of sense of trying to reconcile ideas I had about art with these feelings. And I feel that strongly - that (young) people are confident - the apathy they get accused of a lot - sure it exists, particularly in our country because we're rich and fat and you guys don't know how bad it is everywhere else but I don't know what the reasons are except that our culture is television culture and that's the end of the world. That's the antichrist in my opinion but I don't think kids are apathetic. I think they're smart and they know politicians are lying because they're speaking and I think that's one of the reasons there's no vote because in the main, there's not a solid alternative. I think what Ralph Nader did in this last election or what he has been doing with Greenpeace is amazing, knowing that he loathes the arena - he doesn't like talking - he's not very good at it. He's a worker. I think he represents a healthy promise and an ideal about changes as far as politics goes."

Throughout the entire session, Val was relaxed and candid with the teenagers He earnestly listened to what they had to say and responded in kind. It was evident that everyone present enjoyed the evening tremendously. Once again, I would like to thank Warehouse 21 for graciously allowing Planet Kilmer and the Reading Room to use pieces of the event to give our readers a glimpse into yet another facet of Val Kilmer.

Post Production

The Painting

"As Val was at W21 twice before, he would look pensively at one of the paintings near my office door. He just loved it. It was done by a female teen punker at a summer youth concert. My interpretation of this piece was that it was an intentional elementary school oriented painting. It was a girl that was pink skinned and on her shirt/dress it said "RATT". Then the words "Man of the Mullet" were written along the borders. He made such a connection with this painting.
"When he was about to leave on Friday night, we were next to my office talking. Once again, he just beamed with this art piece. I said, 'You really like this painting, don't you?' He said, 'Yes, I do. I love this painting.' So then I said, 'You would like to have this wouldn't you?' 'Yes,' says Val. 'It is now yours,' I said and pulled it from the wall and gave it to him. He was an appreciative boy man in that moment and I was honored to partake in that special giving experience.
"Perhaps someday, he will have bought that little painting and, perhaps someday, he could be a genuine philanthropist to W21.