There’s difficult to work with and there’s Val Kilmer according to several Hollywood insiders who tried. After the disastrous Island of Dr Moreau director John Frankenheimer said “Even if I was directing a film called The Life of Val Kilmer, I wouldn’t have **** [him] in it.” “Childish and impossible” came from director Joel Schumacher after Batman Forever in 1995.
Kilmer has just written a ‘candid’ autobiography I’m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir, which according to reviewers doesn’t indicate much self-awareness about why his antics have met with such sour responses or why his career stuttered and parts dried up in the nineties.
He was born 31 December 1959 7.58 am Los Angeles, with his parents divorcing when he was young and a younger brother dying at 15 in a drowning accident. He attended school with Kevin Spacey, went to Julliard, started his career in theatre and went on to become a pin-up A-lister after Top Secret, Top Gun and The Doors.
He has a 12th house Sun Saturn in Capricorn trine an 8th house Pluto in Virgo, sextiling onto Neptune which is conjunct his Scorpio Midheaven. Key planets in hidden houses can offer depth insight and subtle influence or drown him in the unconscious without much understanding of why others have such a strong reaction to his behaviour. He has in the past inhabited his characters during filming to the point where he became them – and was known as psycho Kilmer. His Neptune will help for a movie career and Pluto for creating an aura. His Moon in mischievous Aquarius squares Neptune and is inconjunct Pluto, so emotionally confused. He also has an excitable, enthusiastic and adventurous Jupiter, Mars, Mercury in Sagittarius trine Uranus; and a charming Venus in Scorpio in an emotionally erratic square to his Uranus. A complicated mix.
At the moment he has his Progressed Mars conjunct his Moon which doesn’t sound easy – emotionally explosive. And he has the tr Saturn Pluto moving across his Ascendant down into his 1st house which will give him a sombre image. Tr Neptune is also squaring his Mars Jupiter in 2020/21 which will be enthusiasm-denting. None of which suggests great success immediately and he will be less visible in years to come.