Mercedes Kilmer went on national television Tuesday to push back against critics of an AI-generated performance by her late father, Val Kilmer, in an upcoming film, arguing the actor himself championed the effort before his death as a way to protect performers in an age of rapidly advancing technology.
The 34-year-old daughter of the "Top Gun" and "Tombstone" star appeared on TODAY to address the controversy surrounding "As Deep as the Grave," a film that will feature a fully AI-created version of Val Kilmer playing a character called Father Fintan. The movie is expected to arrive in theaters later this year, and its trailer debuted at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on April 15.
Val Kilmer died at 65 from pneumonia in April 2025, after spending a decade battling throat cancer that stripped him of his natural voice. The new film will mark the most ambitious posthumous AI performance yet attempted in Hollywood, and it has split the entertainment world into two camps.
Mercedes Kilmer told TODAY hosts Craig Melvin and Savannah Guthrie that her father didn't simply agree to the project. He drove it. She told the program that the role was first offered to Kilmer in 2018 and then stalled when the COVID pandemic hit in 2020.
"It started off as something to overcome the limitations of his illness, but then it evolved into something that he really was like, 'Oh wait I have a chance to actually set precedent.'"
That framing matters. The loudest objections to AI in entertainment come from performers who fear the technology will be used to replace living actors or exploit the likenesses of the dead without meaningful consent. Mercedes Kilmer acknowledged the fear directly.
"It's kind of fallen into two camps, people that maybe have a more precarious position in the industry are worried and see AI as a threat, which is absolutely valid. Younger actors and musicians, I'm a musician and a lot of people I know, we're so scared of this technology."
But she drew a sharp line between unauthorized exploitation and what her family approved. She said more established figures in Hollywood see the project differently, as a model for how actors and their estates can maintain ownership of their intellectual property.
"And then at the same time, I've gotten a lot of really good responses from people maybe more established in the industry that see it as a way to protect the actors' ownership of their IP."
The filmmakers built Val Kilmer's AI character using recordings of his voice, archival footage, and family photographs. Producer John Voorhees told Entertainment Tonight on April 16 that the project followed SAG-AFTRA guidelines for "consent, compensation and collaboration."
Voorhees was blunt about the actor's wishes:
"This is a character Val wanted to play. He was really clear about that before he passed."
Mercedes Kilmer went further, laying out what she described as her father's vision for a framework that would protect working actors. She said he believed the window before AI regulations are finalized is the moment to build structures, not after the rules are already written by people who may not have performers' interests at heart.
"My dad was very passionate that this is the time, before these laws are written, to make sure that there's a structure for compensation, to make sure that actors get paid on par with what they would get paid if they were physically doing it, and if it creates more jobs in that way, that's wonderful."
That argument carries a logic conservatives should appreciate: rather than waiting for government to impose rules from above, a private party is trying to build a voluntary, market-based precedent from within the industry. Whether it works depends on whether studios follow the model or simply exploit the opening.
Val Kilmer is not the first major actor to have his likeness digitally reconstructed. Artificial intelligence helped re-create Kilmer's voice for a reunion scene with Tom Cruise in the 2022 sequel "Top Gun: Maverick." James Earl Jones allowed AI to replicate the voice of Darth Vader. Carrie Fisher was digitally resurrected in two "Star Wars" films after her death. Harrison Ford was de-aged by AI in the most recent "Indiana Jones" movie.
Each case raised questions. None fully resolved them. The difference Mercedes Kilmer emphasized is that her father actively participated in the decision before he died, and that the family is now positioned to enforce boundaries going forward. The broader entertainment industry has seen enormous shifts in how talent is treated, a trend that extends well beyond AI. The decline of standards in American television is a story that touches everything from late-night comedy to how studios handle the legacies of their biggest stars.
Mercedes Kilmer said the project also has a cultural dimension worth noting. The character of Father Fintan speaks 1920s Navajo language, a dialect the production was able to recover for the film.
"The character speaks 1920s Navajo language, which is a language that they were able to sort of recover for the film, which is I think like a really ethical, interesting use of the technology."
When asked whether she would authorize her father's AI likeness for future projects he never discussed, Mercedes Kilmer hesitated, then offered a careful answer.
"No, because I wouldn't just put his likeness in something without his permission, necessarily."
She added that there are "certain things that he talked about, ways to use it, that we may do eventually." She also acknowledged the broader implications, what happens when estates of long-dead legends like Marilyn Monroe or James Dean face the same question without any record of the person's wishes?
"I don't know if I can speak to that because my dad knew about this project."
That candor is worth something. She didn't claim a universal right to digitally resurrect the dead. She claimed a specific right rooted in her father's documented consent. And she argued the project gives the family legal standing if anyone tries to use Val Kilmer's likeness without authorization in the future.
"This project gave us an opportunity to make sure if someone in the future uses his likeness unauthorized, we can say, 'Oh no, look, this is what you're supposed to do.'"
The debate over AI in entertainment is not going away. The technology is advancing faster than any union contract or federal regulation can keep up with. SAG-AFTRA fought a prolonged strike in part over these very issues, and the guardrails remain thin.
Mercedes Kilmer's argument boils down to a principle most Americans already understand: consent matters, property rights matter, and the people closest to the decision should have the final say, not bureaucrats, not studio executives acting unilaterally, and not online critics second-guessing a family's grief.
She summed up her position plainly:
"We have to contend with this technology one way or another and avoiding it is not necessarily the way. It's much easier to structure the rights if you proactively license."
That's a market-first argument dressed in Hollywood clothes. Build the framework yourself, or someone else, likely someone with less respect for the individual, will build it for you. Val Kilmer, by his daughter's account, understood that.
"I think this is a really historic precedent, and I'm really proud of him."
Whether "As Deep as the Grave" turns out to be a good film is one question. Whether it becomes the model for how the entertainment industry handles AI likenesses is a far bigger one. The Kilmer family is betting that getting ahead of the technology, on their own terms, beats waiting for Washington or Hollywood's corporate lawyers to decide for them.
In a town that rarely lets the dead rest in peace, that bet deserves a fair hearing.
