The following is a compilation from many different journalists who have interviewed Kilmer over the past 25 years.

He is as complex, as inviting and distancing, iconoclastic and respectful, acquisitive and generous, as the Land of Enchantment he lives in.

An opaque conundrum at the least.

He’s personable but intense. Nice but no pushover. He’s also passionate and extremely intelligent, a combination that easily could be confused with arrogance. Above all, Kilmer is incredibly serious about his work.

What the hell can you say about Val Kilmer that hasn’t been said? He really does live on Planet Val. I go into all these interviews thinking I’m going to be surprised and that someone will be nothing like their “persona,” Val Kilmer is. Is that a bad thing? Not particularly.

Kilmer’s voice is soft as if he’s shy, his eye contact strong as if he’s sure. His body language is caffeine-free, as fluid and mellow as reggae music.

Kilmer is no more a bad boy than he is a choir boy. He’s simply a man unafraid to give a dense piece of himself to his work and his life.

He is friendly, buoyant and so open that he often volunteers personal details about his life and is quick to laugh at himself. Still, Mr. Kilmer seems prone to philosophical ramblings. He segues with ease, for instance, from what it was like to meet with real-life crystal meth addicts as part of his research to why communism failed in Tanzania.

Mr. Kilmer is a man of contrasts. Intensely playful with a smidgen of danger and always himself.

Val Kilmer isn’t afraid to give his opinion – never has been, never will be. No question. . . Kilmer isn’t scared to mouth off. But underneath the conviction, the ruggedly handsome star is a bundle of puzzling contradictions.

Val Kilmer is one of our most reluctant hunks, a brainy and opinionated man who chooses his projects based on the limits they’ll push him to, not the grosses they’ll win.

He shares fragments here and there, communicating through wandering sentences, nearly silent body language, and placid eyes, which occasionally sit behind purple sunglasses.

Hazel-eyed and lush-lipped and so damn perfect-looking that reason flees and you think, “So this is what God intended.”

There’s something about Val Kilmer that makes even the most earthbound person invoke the spiritual.

This is clearly quite an intense, serious young man struggling to balance craft and commerce, the art of acting with the business of show business. The actor takes a pretty philosophical approach to the whole process.

Val Kilmer is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most gracious actor it has ever been my pleasure to meet. He is modest, he is well-spoken, he is generous. Val is really from the planet Kilmer, a world of great physical beauty located in the Galaxy of Abstract Ideas. A conversation with Val Kilmer does not tend so much to wander as to accrue various layers of content. This tendency toward the abstruse is a Kilmer hallmark.

In a nutshell, Kilmer is a very, very nice man, and a very, very thoughtful man, as well as a very, very good actor, but he is not a good movie star, and he not only doesn’t want to be one, he is constitutionally incapable. His many parts would get in the way. . .

Behind the talented actor Val Kilmer is a person who has thought deeply about the challenges of love and the meaning of death and life.