It almost happened. Val Kilmer was eager and keen to return to the role of Madmartigan in the Disney Plus series Willow, but ill-health put paid to that. Despite his absense, showrunner Jon Kasdan was keen to ensure the presense of Madmartigan remained a fixture in the story.
“We really wanted Val to come be in the show,, and Val really wanted to come out and be in the show. I remember going to see Val right after this thing started to get some momentum, and I said, ‘Listen, we’re doing this. And the whole world wants Madmartigan back.’ And he was like, ‘Not as much as I do.'”
“He embraced me when I left,” Kasdan remembers. “He picked me up, and he said, ‘See? I’m still super strong.’ And I was like, ‘Great.'”
“We started building out the first season with the intent of having him appear. [It wasn’t clear we couldn’t get him] until pretty late in the process, frankly.”
“As COVID overtook the world, it became insurmountable. We were prepping in the spring of the year that it was most happening. And Val reluctantly didn’t feel he could come out. We had to figure out a way to preserve the story we wanted to tell with him about how his story was playing out.”
“We wanted to leave open the door to any possibility in the future and also honor the spirit of him,. We’ve tried to do that and work with him in a way so that he is felt and heard, if not seen.”
The third episode of Willow landed earlier today, and stay tuned to the site and Fantha Tracks Radio for our thoughts on that and much more.
