Kurt Russell Opens Up About Gifts He & Val Kilmer Exchanged After Filming “Tombstone”
Val Kilmer and Kurt Rusell in the movie Tombstone (Photo Credit: JoBlo Movie Clips / YouTube)
Kurt Russell and Vil Kilmer Starred In The 1993 Western Tombstone
Tombstone is one of the most iconic Western movies and stars Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp, Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, Sam Elliott as Virgil Earp, Bill Paxton as Morgan Earp, and many other notable names in supporting roles.
The movie is based on events in the 1880s in Tombstone, Arizona, and is one of many movies about Wyatt Earp. It made over $73 million.
RELATED: 7+ Facts About The Iconic 1993 Film “Tombstone”
Tombstone was filmed on location in Arizona beginning in May 1993. The cast spent so much time together and got incredibly close. When filming was wrapping up, Kurt Russell planned to give Val Kilmer a gift, and unknowingly, Kilmer also wanted to give Russell something to remember their time together.
Little did they know their gifts would be so similar.
In a 2024 interview with GQ, Kurt Russell opened up about working with Kilmer and the irony of the gifts they gave each other.
“If you’re asking me if it was great working with Val Kilmer, who played Doc Holliday on Tombstone, the answer is absolutely,” Russell said over 30 years after filming with Kilmer.
Then, Russell told the famous gift story.
“In those days, especially when you were working with people, sometimes at the show’s end, you’d get them gifts or trade gifts. It’s not mandatory; it’s not something that you gotta do or that they’ve gotta do,” Russell said in the interview.
Russell explained that he asked his driver to get Kilmer’s holster, gun, hat, and chair with his name on it and take a photo of it.
“In that picture, I wanted to have this thing,” he said.
When he gave the photo to Kilmer, the Top Gun actor asked his driver for his gift to Russell.
“What I had gotten Val was a plot at Boothill; what Val had gotten me was an acre of land overlooking Boothill,” he said. “Doc Holliday was all about death, but Wyatt’s all about life. I guess that pretty much says it all.”
According to Boothill Graveyard’s website, “Cowboys who ‘died with their boots on,’ lie next to housewives, businessmen and women, miners, gamblers, ladies of the ‘red-light district’ and all the famous and not so famous occupants that contributed to Tombstone’s early history.”
Watch Kurt Russell talk about the gifts in the video below.
