The Sunday Read: ‘What Happened to Val Kilmer?’
The Daily
04/06/25
•53m
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“The force of his will is the thing I remember about him,” says Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who wrote a profile of Val Kilmer for The New York Times Magazine in May 2020. “He was sure he was going to come back to his exact former self. ”
The two met for an interview just as a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic seemed all but certain to happen.
Mr. Kilmer, who was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 and had undergone a tracheotomy, was still performing. Mr. Brodesser-Akner credits him with providing “the first whiff of overarching hope and positivity that I’d witnessed in I couldn’t remember how many months.”
“What does somebody do when the thing that they are known for, which is being a superhero, which is being an action hero, which is being handsome, which is being this sort of picture of good health and vigor, what do you do next?” she said. “And a lot of people, they fade away. But that’s not how it went for Val. ”
Mr. Kilmer, who played classic roles such as Batman and Iceman in “Top Gun,” died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 65.
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Over the past few weeks, President Trump has used executive orders to wage war on law firms, specifically targeting those whose lawyers have investigated or sued him, or represented his enemies in court.
Michael Barbaro speaks to Thomas Sipp, a lawyer who chose to quit after his firm, Skadden, negotiated a deal to placate the president.
Guest: Thomas Sipp, a lawyer who left his firm after they negotiated a deal with Mr. Trump.
Background reading:
- Read about how, Paul Weiss, a major democratic law firm, ended up bowing to Mr. Trump.
- Ever since the elite law firms Skadden and Paul Weiss reached deals with the Trump administration, top partners have closed ranks in support of the agreements.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
Photo: John Taggart for The New York Times
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