Val Kilmer Felt Like an ‘Idiot’ After an Awkward Meeting With Bob Dylan

After years of idolizing Bob Dylan, Val Kilmer had the chance to meet the artist. Kilmer found it surprising, and quite thrilling, that Dylan agreed to meet with him. He eagerly anticipated their conversation, but it wasn’t quite what he’d hoped it would be. Kilmer shared why he walked away feeling like an “idiot.”

Val Kilmer said he felt foolish after meeting with Bob Dylan

Kilmer had long admired Dylan when he heard that the singer loved the movie Tombstone. The actor decided to reach out to see if Dylan would meet him. To his delight, Dylan called him directly and agreed. When Dylan arrived, though, the conversation didn’t go in the direction Kilmer had hoped. 

“He shows up and sits down, and he wants to talk about Tombstone, but I just can’t, you know, nor can I talk about any of his stuff,” he said, per Far Out Magazine. “Eventually, he says, ‘Ain’t you going to say anything about that movie?’ and I said, ‘Do some “Blowin’ in the Wind” and I’ll…’ That’s what I said to him. Basically, I said no. I get like that sometimes.”

He almost immediately regretted this.

“I thought, no one turns this guy down. What was I thinking?” he said. “Anyway, I felt like an idiot afterwards — like, yeah, I could have said a few lines. They’re fun lines too. People still ask me to say them, and now I’ll tell any schmo in the airport, I’ll say, ‘I’m your huckleberry,’ but I wouldn’t say it to Bob Dylan.”

He was still happy to have met the artist

While the meeting wasn’t what Kilmer expected, he said the insistence on hearing a few lines from Tombstone felt like a very Dylan thing to do.

“It’s funny because you spend years idolizing someone, and then when you finally meet them, it never goes the way you expect,” he said. “But that’s probably why Dylan is Dylan. He exists on his own terms.”

He eventually sent the musician a tape recording of him singing “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” as Doc Holliday from Tombstone.

“At the very least, I know I tried,” he said. “What do you even give Bob Dylan? He’s already got everything — awards, history, an entire culture hanging on his every word. So I figured I’d give him something truly unique. Nobody else was ever going to give him ‘It’s Alright, Ma’ in full Doc Holliday mode, that’s for sure.”

Ultimately, he was glad to have met the artist.

“I mean, Bob Dylan called me. That alone is enough of a story for me,” he said. “Even if I didn’t say ‘I’m your huckleberry’ when I had the chance.”

Val Kilmer said he considered Bob Dylan a friend

Kilmer and Dylan went on to have a friendship after their first meeting. Kilmer appeared in Dylan’s film Masked and Anonymous and Dylan continued to reference Tombstone whenever he saw Kilmer.

“I am a friend of Bob’s, as much as Bob has friends,” Kilmer told Esquire. “Bob is a funny guy. He is the funniest man I know.”