Ask A Genius 1331: Val Kilmer’s Dead
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/04/04
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, there is an actor who was known for film and theatre, born in Los Angeles.
Rick Rosner: Val Kilmer? Are you saying Val Kilmer?
Rosner: He was the youngest student ever accepted to Juilliard’s drama program. He was known for Top Secret, Top Gun, The Doors, and Batman Forever.
Real Genius. It’s one of my favorite movies because it deals with a list of people with the highest IQs in the world.
And there is a character number two or three on that list.
And a woman in the movie is trying to sleep with all the top ten.
I have to go in a second, but—there is a guy with the world’s highest IQ who lives in the walls of Caltech, in the tunnels and walls, and he has figured out a scam where he can enter a McDonald’s sweepstakes 400,000 times and win a million dollars worth of prizes.
I thought, well, if he can do that, I can.
So, I started entering contests hundreds or even thousands of times.
And I won once.
And then I got yelled at a lot because people do not like it when you drop a hundred entries into a ballot box all at once.
They think that is cheating.
That guy—the highest IQ guy in Real Genius—is now the bad guy on White Lotus, like 40 years later.
But he is also Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite.
Anyway, yeah, it is sad about Val Kilmer.
He was always a symbol of insouciant youth and vitality.
And then he had a bunch of tough years.
I think he has been fighting cancer for like a decade.
But I think he was not a douchebag, and he gave many people much joy through his movies.
And now he is gone at 65.
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