It's been a long time coming. After 36 years, Tom Cruise's Maverick and Val Kilmer's Iceman again face off in "Top Gun: Maverick."
But with all the action in the film, it might be easy to overlook what it means for Kilmer to reprise his role.
In "Top Gun: Maverick," Iceman is mostly unable to speak due to an unnamed disease. It is not unlike Kilmer's own loss of speech. The actor underwent a tracheotomy for throat cancer in 2014 but is still able to deliver some dialogue in the new film, due largely to artificial intelligence that Kilmer previously used.
In 2021, Kilmer revealed that he had partnered with the software company Sonantic to create his old speaking voice. Using an AI prototype, Kilmer supplied the company with archival footage of his voice that was then fed into its algorithms and used to create the model, according to The Wrap.
"We create the world's most expressive and realistic artificial voices, and we do this for the entertainment industry," CEO and co-founder Zeena Qureshi told People at the time. "So on one side we work with actors and we help them train basically an AI version of themselves that can edit and it can work for them."
CTO and co-founder John Flynn in a recent interview with Fortune that the company generated more than 40 different voice models and "selected the best, highest-quality, most expressive one."
"Those new algorithms are now embedded into our voice engine, so future clients can automatically take advantage of them as well," he said.
"I’m grateful to the entire team at Sonantic who masterfully restored my voice in a way I’ve never imagined possible," Kilmer said in a statement in 2021.
"As human beings, the ability to communicate is the core of our existence and the side effects from throat cancer have made it difficult for others to understand me," he said. "The chance to narrate my story, in a voice that feels authentic and familiar, is an incredibly special gift."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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