Val Kilmer's “Conspiracy” Director Says Late Actor Was 'Worst Human Being I've Ever Known'

Kilmer, who died in 2025, starred in the Adam Marcus 2008 action thriller

NEED TO KNOW

• Director Adam Marcus called Val Kilmer the “worst human being” he’s ever worked with in a social media post
• Kilmer died of pneumonia on April 1, 2025
• In his 2021 documentary Val, the actor admitted to past poor behavior but said he had no regrets

Director Adam Marcus is calling out Val Kilmer over a year after the late actor's death.

On May 31, Marcus, 58, reflected on working with Kilmer while directing the 2008 action thriller Conspiracy.

“#MicroIntellectMonday to that time when I directed that guy. The guy who played Iceman and Doc Holiday. You know the one,” Marcus wrote on Threads, according to Entertainment Weekly. “Here’s me and the Putz working it out on the set of Conspiracy. So yeah, that happened.” 

In Conspiracy, Kilmer starred as William “Spooky” MacPherson, a disabled Iraq War veteran who travels to Arizona to visit an old friend. When he discovers the friend and his family have mysteriously vanished (and that locals deny they ever existed), MacPherson uncovers a corporate plot targeting undocumented immigrants.

Marcus had more to say. Seemingly anticipating backlash for criticizing the Top Gun star following his death from pneumonia on April 1, 2025, the director doubled down on his comments.

“And to any of you rolling your eyes because of the whole ‘don’t speak ill of the dead bulls—,’ f— that,” he said. “[If] this guy did one-tenth of what he did on my set today, he would have been cancelled in a blink.”

“Worst human being I’ve ever known… and that is really saying something,” Marcus finished.

Marcus' posts have since been deleted.

His comments add to a long-running conversation about Kilmer's reputation on set. Over the years, several filmmakers publicly described the actor as difficult to work with.

After directing Kilmer in 1995's Batman Forever, Joel Schumacher called him “childish and impossible” and a “psychologically disturbed human being” in a 1996 interview with Entertainment Weekly. Likewise, director John Frankenheimer said he would never work with Kilmer again following their collaboration on The Island of Dr. Moreau.

In 2003, Kilmer addressed those criticisms in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I’ve been careless about how I viewed my business. But I trust that the truth is the truth and a lie is a lie,” Kilmer said. “Frankenheimer, bless him, he passed on, but he had a history of being mean about people.”

In the 2021 documentary Val, a reflection on Kilmer’s life and career, the Tombstone actor revisited the subject. 

“I have behaved poorly. I have behaved bravely. I have behaved bizarrely to some,” said Kilmer. “I deny none of this and have no regrets because I have lost and found parts of myself that I never knew existed. And I am blessed.”

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