David Thewlis remembers “awful” five months working with Val Kilmer on ill-fated ‘The Island of Dr Moreau’

David Thewlis has shared his tribute to his The Island of Dr Moreau co-star Val Kilmer, who died earlier this week aged 65.

The Batman Forever actor passed away on Tuesday (April 1) after a battle with pneumonia, as confirmed by his daughter Mercedes. Kilmer had been diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, but later made a recovery.

Amongst his filmography is the 1996 film The Island of Dr Moreau, which saw Kilmer and Thewlis star alongside Marlon Brando in one of his final film roles. Its production was notoriously rife with problems, not least Kilmer’s frequent clashes with Brando and director John Frankenheimer.

Reflecting on his time spent with Kilmer, Thewlis shared an Instagram post in tribute to his fallen friend. “I spent the most bizarre 5 months of my entire life with Val Kilmer, out in the Australian rainforest, on the ill fated Island of Dr Moreau,” he wrote.

Fairuza Balk and David Thewlis in a scene from ‘The Island Of Dr. Moreau’. CREDIT: New Line/Getty Images

“It was so spectacularly bleak and awful it was almost wonderful. Look it up sometime. As Val wrote in his final mail to me: ‘What an incredible story we lived, you and I. One of the greatest.’”

Thewlis added that he learned of Kilmer’s death while back in Australia: “He was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. Proud to have called him a friend and co-conspirator.”

Per Deadline, television writer Matt Corman – who previously worked as Kilmer’s personal assistant and researcher – recently shared that the stories about the Dr. Moreau shoot is true and that “it was bonkers”.

However, he shared in a lengthy tribute, his time spent with Kilmer there revealed “how funny Val was”, recalling a moment in his Australia home when Kilmer eased tensions between the two by performing a mimed routine with flattened cigarettes.

“Was Val performing this display because he felt bad about yelling at me, or because the bent cigarette was just too great a prop to pass up?” Corman wrote. “I don’t know, but it was a comedic miracle in miniature, an entire production put on for my amusement alone, and although Val milked it, it was over much faster than I would have liked.”

On Tuesday, tributes poured in from Kilmer’s Hollywood contemporaries and friends. In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, filmmaker Michael Mann said, “While working with Val on Heat I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character. After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news”.

Tributes also came in from actor Josh Brolin, who said “I’m going to miss you”, Stranger Things actor Matthew Modine said “If it wasn’t for our chance encounter at the Source in 1985, I may never have been cast in FULL METAL JACKET. Thanks, Val”. Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes shared an image from their 1998 animated film The Prince Of Egypt along with a tribute.

In a separate tribute, Stephen Merchant remembered Kilmer as someone who was “as engaging as he was eccentric”, while fans have been sharing clips of past work by Kilmer – including a Oneohtrix Point Never music video – along with tweets he previously shared about his relationships with Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.

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