Tom Cruise and the others who worked on the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick had to think about a lot of things.

In the first Top Gun, Val Kilmer was Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. Kilmer’s health issues, on the other hand, made it hard to bring back the character. A few years ago, when the actor had a tracheotomy to treat throat cancer, his voice changed in every way.

She’s just as serious as Iceman. Val Kilmer has been on a health journey since he was told he had throat cancer more than five years ago.

Learn About Val Kilmer’s Health Issues

Val Kilmer first denied that he was sick, but in 2017 he finally said he had throat cancer and talked about how it had changed the way he saw life.

In an honest interview with the New York Times, Kilmer said that he didn’t want to go to the doctor at first. The Times says that Kilmer’s children finally persuaded him to get treatment for his throat cancer, which included many rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Several sources, such as his 2020 documentary Val and his memoir I’m Your Huckleberry, say that the surgeries helped Kilmer beat his throat cancer and put it into remission.

Kilmer’s treatments, which included a tracheostomy tube and a feeding tube, made it so he couldn’t speak like he used to.

Val said in his 2021 film that he eats through a tube.

“I can’t talk until I plug up this hole in my throat,” he said. “You have to decide whether to breathe or eat.”

His son told most of the story in the documentary, but Kilmer added, “It’s a problem that everyone who knows me knows about. He says that he sounds “much worse” than he actually feels.

He said, “I’ve done weird things to some people.” “I don’t deny any of this, and I don’t feel bad about it either, because I’ve lost and found parts of myself I didn’t know were there. I am lucky.”

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About Val Kilmer Health

In an interview that aired on Good Morning America in April 2020, Kilmer said that the procedure was done as part of his healing and to help him feel less pain at the time.

He said, “I feel even better than I sound, but I feel great.” “I was told I had throat cancer, but it went away very quickly. This is a tracheotomy to help me breathe because the glands in my throat swelled up.

Sameep Kadakia, MD, director of Premier Health’s Comprehensive Head and Neck Cancer and Reconstruction Program, told Premier Health Now that Kilmer’s return to the big screen with a voice damaged by cancer sends a strong message to cancer patients and their families.

He also says that since the first “Top Gun,” treatments for head and neck cancer “has come a long way, with a real focus on restoring quality of life instead of just length of life.”

As part of his treatment, Kilmer had to go through chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery to put a tube in his windpipe. No longer does anyone think that he has cancer.

If a patient loses their voice, there are several things that can be done to help them talk again.

In his scene, Kilmer uses a machine to type what he says to Tom Cruise’s character, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. One line he says can also be heard. His voice was copied using technology based on artificial intelligence and recordings he made before he got cancer treatment.

When Did Val Kilmer Get His Voice Back?

Kilmer said in August 2021 that he was working with Sonantic to get a voice that was powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The actor gave the company hours of old videos of him talking, which the company then put through its algorithms to make a model. Fortune says that the actor’s role in “Top Gun: Maverick” used the same method.

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John Flynn, the CTO and co-founder of Sonantic, told Forbes, “In the end, we made more than 40 different voice models and picked the best, highest-quality, most expressive one.” It has nothing to do with the movie. “These new algorithms are now a part of our voice engine, so they can be used by all of our future clients.”

Kilmer said early on about the A.I., “I’m thankful to the whole team at Sonantic. They gave me back my voice in a way I never thought was possible.” “Being able to talk is the most important part of being human, but throat cancer makes it hard for other people to understand me. Being able to tell my story with a voice that sounds real and familiar is a very special gift.