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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023
  • iMastari@lemmy.worldtoNews@lemmy.world•Val Kilmer, Actor Renowned for Receding Into His Roles, Dies at 65
    10·
    4 months ago

    Here are some cool facts about the movie:

      1. Val Kilmer didn’t just play Jim Morrison—he became him. Before CGI, before deepfakes, there was Val Kilmer. He spent six months rehearsing, learned 50 Doors songs, and recorded vocals so convincing that Ray Manzarek couldn’t tell them apart from Jim’s. Kilmer even paid out of his own pocket to film a full performance demo for Oliver Stone. But it wasn’t just mimicry—it was method acting gone full Lizard King. He wore Morrison’s leather pants, spoke like him between takes, and according to crew memos, requested not to be addressed by his real name on set. Now that’s rock ’n’ roll commitment—or possession.
      1. The real Patricia Kennealy plays the priestess in her own fictionalized wedding scene. Talk about meta. Rock journalist and Wiccan high priestess Patricia Kennealy, who actually participated in a handfasting ceremony with Jim Morrison in real life, appears in the movie—but not as herself. Instead, she plays the priestess marrying Meg Ryan’s Pamela Courson and Kilmer’s Morrison. The kicker? Kennealy has denounced the film’s portrayal of her, claiming much of her dialogue was given to Courson’s character instead. She called it a betrayal, but in a twist worthy of Morrison’s own poetry, she helped perform her own cinematic erasure.
      1. The script was filtered through dozens of people—including Morrison’s parents and Elektra Records. Oliver Stone didn’t just write a rock movie—he had to negotiate with lawyers, estates, labels, and parents. Morrison’s family only allowed dream-like flashbacks. Pamela Courson’s parents restricted any implication that she influenced Jim’s death. Meanwhile, the band members weren’t all on the same page: Ray Manzarek refused to participate, while John Densmore and Robby Krieger consulted on the film, each bringing their own version of the myth. The result? A movie as much shaped by censorship and grief as by art and music.
      1. Kilmer’s live performances in the film weren’t lip-synced—they were sung live over original master tapes. Most music biopics fake it with overdubs or studio trickery. Not The Doors. Val Kilmer sang live, blending his voice with the original multitrack recordings of the Doors, minus Jim’s lead vocals. The effect was chilling. He rehearsed daily and performed so hard during the five-day shoot of “The End” at the Whisky a Go Go recreation that he nearly lost his voice. This wasn’t a musical performance—it was a séance, captured on film and played back like a ghostly echo from the Summer of Love.
      1. Nearly everyone turned it down before Oliver Stone picked up the torch. Before Stone got behind the camera, the Doors biopic passed through Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and more. Bono, Michael Hutchence, Johnny Depp, and even John Travolta were considered for Morrison. But it was Stone’s obsession and Kilmer’s uncanny embodiment that finally got the film made. Stone even had to abandon Evita (sorry, Madonna) to make room for the psychedelic circus that The Doors became. The studio fights, lawsuits, casting drama—it’s a miracle the film ever made it to theaters. But like the band it depicts, it survived in chaos and emerged as something unforgettable.

    https://www.thatericalper.com/2025/04/02/5-wildly-unknown-facts-about-the-doors-movie/--