Will Forte with Val Kilmer while filming MacGruber. Photo: Courtesy of Will Forte

This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.

In 2010, Will Forte, co-writer John Solomon, and director Jorma Taccone released one of the rare great Saturday Night Live cinematic adaptations: the high-octane spy parody MacGruber. The recurring SNL sketch itself was a MacGyver parody that took the same format every time: Forte’s MacGruber had to deactivate a bomb, he inevitably got distracted, and it always ended with the bomb exploding. The feature-length film had slightly more narrative adornment — in so far as MacGruber faced off against a central villain, the bloodthirsty sophisticate Dieter Von Cunth, played by Val Kilmer. After the release of the film, Forte and Kilmer stayed good friends; the following year, Kilmer lived with Forte for three months. Following the news of the actor’s death on April 1, Forte shared his memories of his friend and roommate Val.

We never thought in a million years that we could get Val Kilmer to play this part. I had been a huge fan of his for years — Doc Holliday is one of my favorite characters from movies of all time — so it was just incredibly exciting to even get to meet him. We somehow talked him into coming to do a MacGruber table read to play the part that he eventually played in the movie. But he was not signed up to do it yet; he was just doing us a favor. When he actually agreed to be in MacGruber, that was just another level of excitement. We were all really nervous around him at first — partially because we were like, Oh my God, let’s not blow it and make him not want to do the movie anymore.

But he quickly put us at ease. I remember one time, I got to set, and he was wearing this red plaid shirt. I said, “Oh man, that’s my kind of shirt! That is right up my alley!” And he just took the shirt off and said, “This is yours now.” Then he was just sitting there with his shirt off, fully exposed to the world, while we continued to talk. Without even thinking, he literally gave me the shirt off his back. He was the most interesting person in the world, because there were so many elements to his personality. He was incredibly funny and incredibly smart. He could be super-silly and then turn around and be a little frickin’ devil — but a sweet little devil. Life is more vivid when you’re hanging out with Val.

When we got to the end of shooting, we became pretty tight through that experience, and it was fun to keep in touch with him. Then, at some point, he was in a situation where he was going to sell his place in New Mexico. He had been staying in Malibu, but he was having a dispute with his landlord, so he was looking for a new place and said, “Hey, can I stay at your place for a couple days while I’m looking for a new place?” I don’t remember if he said “a couple days,” but I got the impression that it was going to be a couple days. So he showed up on a Monday, and later that day, his assistant came over with two huge duffel bags filled with books, and I’m like, Oh, this seems like it’s maybe going to be more than a couple days. It ended up being two and a half months.

I’m a little OCD, so we were kind of like The Odd Couple. I would get back at night from going to dinner or something, and all the lights in the house would be off, and he would have this little miner’s headlamp on that I had gotten at Burning Man. So as I’d be walking past his room, there’d be a little bit of light coming out from the door, and I would see him in there reading a book with that miner’s light on. That was when he was putting together his Mark Twain show, so it was very special to get to see that from its early incubation period into what it grew to be. Because when he went out to put on the show for the first time, it was filled with amazing things, but it was also really long and kind of unformed. But he was like, “I’m just going to go try it out!” — in front of thousands of people. The parts that went well were great, and he started chipping away at it from there, and it turned into this amazing piece of theater that he was so proud of.

I used to watch The Amazing Race, and he came back home at some point when I was watching it and was like, “What are you watching that garbage for? Come on, that stuff’s going to rot your mind.” I said, “It’s pretty good. You should sit down and watch it. Give it a try before you shit on it.” So he sat down and he started watching it, and he got really into it. Then, at a certain point, he said, “Will, you and I have to go do The Amazing Race. We have to. Let’s do The Amazing Race.” I’m like, “I am so fully in.” We got really excited about it, and then we called our respective agents and managers, and they were like, “There’s no way you guys are doing that.” That is, maybe to this day, the biggest regret of my whole career — that I never did The Amazing Race with Val. I think we would’ve gotten out very quickly, but it just would’ve been the experience of a lifetime.

He was also a big fan of 30 Rock, which I had a part on. He was watching it a lot when he was staying with me. I was asked to do a 30 Rock DVD commentary, and I said, “Val is a big fan of 30 Rock. What if he came and we did the commentary together?” He was busy that morning, and so we met at the recording studio. Well, he showed up dressed head to toe as Mark Twain for some unexplained reason. He was like, “Yeah, I’m trying this out.” He had just been walking around the Third Street Promenade as Mark Twain — prosthetics on his face, full hair and mustache — and it was so funny. Every day was filled with something like that.

I used to run a lot, so at some point he said, “Hey, you going running?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Maybe I’ll come for a run with you.” And I said, “Oh, okay, great. Well, I’m pretty close to being ready.” He was wearing this linen suit, and he’s like, “Okay, yeah, I can be ready soon.” A couple minutes to go by, and he’s just hanging around in that linen suit. I’m like, “I have a pretty tight window here, so I’ve got to leave pretty soon.” And he said, “Oh, I’m ready to go.” “You’re going to freaking go jogging in that linen suit?!” And he’s like, “Yeah.” We went for a jog, and he was just wearing this, like, gentleman’s suit, and I think he was wearing Top-Siders and a straw hat? He ended up stopping in a public restroom, and I kept jogging a little further before stopping to wait for him. One of the great joys of my life is, as I turned around to look back at him, I saw him jogging back in my direction in this linen suit. That was him — just full of surprises. Just the most unique person I’ve ever met.

“There’s something about his confidence and the way he takes his time — I can’t even describe it. It’s like, ‘Why is a rainbow beautiful?’ I don’t know. You just watch it and you’re mesmerized. You’re drawn to him.” Photo: Courtesy of Will Forte

I was a fan of the Doors, and one day, we were sitting at the kitchen table just hanging around. I was paying bills or something; I forget what he was doing. He had music playing on these little speakers, and these Doors songs started playing, and we spontaneously both started singing. I think it started with “L.A. Woman,” and then we sang “Roadhouse Blues” and then “Touch Me.” In that moment, I had kind of forgotten, Oh yeah, this is that same guy that I was such a huge fan of. Now he’s just become Val to me. 

Another time, I was in the kitchen and he came in, for some reason, wearing his boxers on his head. He was this fun, sometimes pompous actor — I mean, pretending to be pompous. I’m sure there was true pomposity in there, but there were times when he’d be over-the-top pretending to be pompous and pretentious … with his boxers on his head. Lorne [Michaels] always tells this story about an email or a letter that he had sent to me the night before shooting MacGruber about how he was going to act me under the table. He’s always interested in keeping you guessing. You never know what you’re going to get.

He ended up making a movie out of that Mark Twain show he did, so he asked me to come to a screening. So, you’re watching him in this movie, and his voice was the voice that you remember — that smooth, beautiful, baritone voice. And then he came out afterward to do a Q&A, and because of everything that happened with his medical situation and the cancer, his voice was just not the same. But everyone loved it. He got up there and did this full, awesome Q&A with tons of energy that I think a lot of people wouldn’t have the courage to do like that.

He was such a good dramatic actor that a lot of people forget that he started out in all these different kinds of comedies and was just pitch-perfect in them. Top Secret was a real precision comedy — for those jokes, you needed somebody with a real sense of humor to deliver them, and he was so good at playing it straight and letting the jokes come out in a perfect way; he didn’t force them. It’s very rare that you have this gorgeous specimen of a man who can deliver comedy like that. There’s something about his confidence and the way he takes his time — I can’t even describe it. It’s like, “Why is a rainbow beautiful?” I don’t know. You just watch it and you’re mesmerized. You’re drawn to him.

I wish I had more time to remember the old stories. There are so many memories I’m leaving out. I’m sure we talked about collaborating on other stuff together, but nothing really serious. He was always like, “Oh, I’m going to go do this thing for Francis Ford Coppola” or something like that. Somehow, we lucked into getting him to do MacGruber, but I didn’t know if I was going to get that lucky to get to work with him again. I settled for being his roommate.