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Hollywood actor Val Kilmer is getting more face time these days than he arguably deserves, thanks to someone in Toronto who’s clearly quite crafty with scissors and glue.
Photocopied cutouts of Kilmer’s mug have been showing up in the last year or so on buildings, fences and garbage bins in the Queen West and College areas.
The ubiquitous images of a younger Kilmer have inspired others to add Batman masks – an ode to a former role – or simply scrawl his name or the word “void” across the faces.
Kilmer thinks the whole tagging caper is just bizarre.
“I’m as bewildered as the next tag subject,” he said on the line on January 7 from Dublin, where he was promoting the European release of his latest film, Alexander.
“It could be my older brother tagging Toronto,” he jokes. “I don’t have any way of helping you out with this. Maybe I’ll have to come and investigate myself.”
The practice of tagging is an irritant for police and property owners. But the Kilmer mystery has pop art enthusiasts buzzing, and speculation about who’s behind it is making headlines around the world.
It made the January 17 issue of People, which declared, “Bring me the head of Val Kilmer.”
The story was splashed across the January 5 edition of Scotland’s Daily Record under the headline “Val is left red-faced.”
On the Internet, bloggers are sharing theories about the origins and meaning of the grassroots Kilmer campaign.
Some believe it’s part of an underground movement to revive Kilmer’s career or to win him back the Batman role. Another theory is that one of the actor’s fans wanted to put up so many Kilmer cut-outs that he’d have to make a public statement denouncing the graffiti.
But the most elaborate explanation comes from a blogger calling himself Shufler. He claims the Kilmer faces are promoting a local band named the Val Kilmer Tagging Caper.
He writes, “The Val Kilmer Tagging Caper used to be known simply as Val Kilmer. The graffiti all over Toronto was really advertising for the band. After a while, their fans started getting into the act and writing ‘Val Kilmer’ wherever and whenever.
“It’s rumoured that the name came about when a couple of police officers came to one of Val Kilmer’s shows and demanded that the graffiti cease. Since the band members were no longer responsible for most of the tags, they denied having anything to do with it apart from sharing the same name. The police officers left in a huff, unsatisfied by not figuring out who did it.”
Shufler claims he found the band’s independent CD at HMV and discovered that its members are named after characters Kilmer’s played in movies: Simon Templar (The Saint), Tom Kazanski (Top Gun) and Nick Rivers (Top Secret).
Problem is, the band and the CD cover Shufler posted online don’t exist.
Another story making the rounds is that the actor himself suggested the tagging to a fan during a drunken conversation at the Toronto International Film Festival several years ago.
Kilmer’s New York publicist, Christina Papadopoulos, denies her client has anything to do with it. “People shouldn’t be damaging property and using his likeness to do it,” she says.
news@nowtoronto.com
