Chris O’Donnell: Val Kilmer’s a strange guy

Chris O’Donnell has shared his “strange” memories of working with Val Kilmer.

The 44-year-old actor took on the role of the Caped Crusader’s sidekick Robin in 1995 movie Batman Forever, with Val playing the protagonist.

But while Chris admires Val’s acting talent, his 55-year-old co-star could do with some work on the social interaction front.

“I had most of my stuff with Val [Kilmer] and Val is an incredible actor,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “He can be a strange guy and not always a friendly guy, but a terrific actor - and I thought he was great as Batman.”

George Clooney replaced Val as Batman in the 1997 follow-up film Batman & Robin. While the movie was a relative box office success, it was critically panned. And Chris revealed the disappointing reception for the movie led to a spin-off around his character Robin, entitled Nightwing, being cancelled.

“When the reviews came out on Batman & Robin, that was shut down immediately,” he said. “This has been a great opportunity for me and I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was an amazing opportunity and gave me incredible international exposure. And everyone dealt with it differently. Some people became very reclusive about it and freaked out by it.

“I thought George handled it great. He was like, ‘Well, we killed the franchise,’ and funny about it. For me, I will always look back with fond memories. But of course, I’m not as proud of the second one as I was of the first one.”