10 Infamous Times Actors Refused To Break Character

To say Val Kilmer got slightly obsessive in his approach to playing rock legend Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s biopic The Doors is probably putting it mildly. In the year leading up to filming, Kilmer dressed like Morrison and hung out at his old L.A. haunts alongside spending hour after hour badgering The Doors’ producer Paul Rothchild to learn all about Morrison’s vocal mannerisms.

He ended up memorizing 50 Doors songs (even though only 15 were actually used in the film) and did such a convincing job of mimicking Morrison’s singing that even his fellow band members had trouble telling their voices apart.

As dedicated as Kilmer was to the role, his behaviour on set soon took a diva-like turn. While staying in character during filming is perfectly understandable, the way Kilmer went about establishing this probably wasn’t the best way to curry favour with cast and crew.

According to movie legend, Kilmer sent a memo around requesting that people refer to him as ‘Jim’ (fair enough) but also forbade people to approach him without good reason or to stare at him on set (not so fair) and then had the audacity to wonder why he was being largely ignored on set. He basically insisted everyone treat him like a brattish, entitled rock star and was then bewildered when they did exactly that. Actor logic, eh?

Mind, some say that Morrison was a bit of a d**k so perhaps it was all part of Kilmer’s method acting masterplan.