Val Kilmer’s Amazing Mark Twain Impression, REVEALED AT LAST

Perhaps you remember this fascinating tidbit from a recent One Day at a Time:

SUNDAY, JANUARY 20
Walter Kirn—who wrote the book that the movie Up in the Air (starring George Clooney) was based on—just gave an interview to Vulture, which we mention only because Kirn is pals with Val Kilmer… and Kirn dropped this amazing factoid! “[Kilmer’s] real ambition, and what he’s putting all his time and money into—and this is no joke, because he’s good at it—is to be this generation’s preeminent Mark Twain impersonator…. He’s developed a show that he puts on somewhat spottily and informally around Los Angeles, where he wears $3,000 worth of prosthetic makeup, and he’s actually awesome at it. He wants to make the same kind of transformation that he did with Jim Morrison when he did The Doors. And as a friend, I think if he could just get a grip on his flakiness, he could really make a splash with this. It sounds a little eccentric [What? No! —Ann], but he’s got a lot of material, because it’s not just old Twain, it’s the drunken, sad, regretful, pensive character that we’re not used to.” MEANWHILE, ON TWITTER… Kilmer promptly posted several dramatic pictures of himself in extensive and convincing Mark Twain makeup, adding phrases like “Last make up test for Twain,” “Learnin’ my lines,” and a casual, “I was researching our greatest orators for Mark Twain….” This, dears, is the best celebrity news story of 2013, and—aside from a public Kilmer-as-Twain performance, or perhaps a 3D re-release of Top Gun with Kilmer’s Twain green screened over his “Iceman” character—we’d love to see anyone try to top it. Bring it on, Hollyweird. We’re your Huckleberry.

YES. AGREED. Short of this summer’s Justin Timberlake/Jay-Z tour, seeing Val Kilmer do Mark Twain is pretty much the thing I want to see most in the entire world, and—WAIT. WHAT! Val Kilmer is bringing his Twain production—brilliantly titled Citizen Twain—to stages! The trailer for the thing is out, courtesy of Kilmer himself; watch it immediately. It’s amazing.

Val Kilmer on WhoSay

This is the best thing ever and I want to see Citizen Twain so badly that I am having a hard time thinking about anything else.