Iceman Cometh.

Val Kilmer Was In Town Friday Discussing His Most Advanced Role to Date.

In his nearly 30-year career, Val Kilmer has filled his resume with a long list of iconic roles.

He's been Iceman, Jim Morrison, Batman, Moses and Doc Holliday. Heck, he was even Billy the Kid once in a made-for-TV movie.

But for his latest role in the one-man play Citizen Twain, as well as the still-in-the-making biopic he's been working on for the past ten years, he's dedicated himself to a role like he never has before. In both projects, Kilmer portrays Mark Twain, a man he admittedly admires for his humor and outspokenness.

“Twain is just so funny,” Kilmer told us while in Dallas to accept an award from the Dallas Film Society. “Twain reminds us that we all have friends that are very different. You can celebrate them with humor, or you can be grumpy and no one will talk to you.”

And KIlmer's no grump: Citizen Twain, Kilmer said, will hopefully tour to Dallas sometime around April of next year.

As for that film? Kilmer says he's keeping close tabs on another biography project running at the moment and that he hopes it could just be the ticket to finally getting his own Twain bio off the ground: “I have a lot of excitement about Daniel Day Lewis with Lincoln,” Kilmer says. “I hope it's a huge smash because Hollywood is less and less creative. A lot of people know about my movie idea, but I think it'll be easier to sell if Spielberg has another success with Lincoln.”

Nonetheless, Kilmer didn't appear too worried when we spoke with him. As the veteran method actor walked the red carpet at Dallas Film Society's Art of Film event with an overriding sense of poise, he seemed to relish in the opportunity to go in and out of his version Twain's voice or to use some of the author's well-known quotes. One gets the idea that, whether or not Kilmer's decade-in-the-making vanity project ever comes to fruition, he's still thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity it has provided him to further hone his craft.

“I think one of the main things that is inspiring every day is to do what you do well,” Kilmer said. “[Twain] said of writers of genius that they're wine — but that he wrote like water. And everybody drinks water. It's the idea of just doing what you do well and working at it every day.”