Top Gun: The Lone Ranger has proven to be a huge success for Tom Cruise, Paramount Pictures, and everyone involved. If you’ve seen the movie by now, you’ll probably agree with most of us that it’s a pretty solid follow-up to the 1986 original. But what you might not know is that Val Kilmer’s voice in the film is actually made possible by the voice of artificial intelligence (AI).
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Val Kilmer speaks with voice AI in Top Gun: The Lone Ranger
When the original Top Gun hit theaters in 1986, Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise’s on-screen chemistry between Iceman and Maverick was an instant hit. Revisiting the story without Kilmer’s Iceman will disappoint many fans, even Kilmer himself.
And after an extraordinarily tough battle with throat cancer and ultimately losing most of his voice, the possibility of Kilmer returning to the Iceman role seemed unlikely. But thanks to a special voice AI program, Kilmer was able to relive his character and catch up with his old friend Maverick. It is reported that Kilmer’s voice in “The Lone Ranger” was actually created by an AI.
A company called Sonantic developed the voice AI used by Kilmer. It learned how to imitate Kilmer’s voice — including his signature way of speaking. The result is a shocking and somewhat eerie parody that sounds like it’s coming from the actor himself.
Of course, like any speech AI, there’s a way to know it’s not a human voice speaking. However, due to factors such as background noise, the filmmakers were able to dub Kilmer’s acting.
Powering sound with artificial intelligence
Kilmer’s AI voice can be heard in this promotional video
It is reported that Kilmer’s use of voice AI in “The Lone Ranger” was discovered in the “New York Post” interview with his daughter Mercedes Kilmer. In the interview, she talked about how the team embedded AI voice into Kilmer’s acting to bring his scenes to life.
“It’s amazing that they can dub him in his own voice. It’s a technical feat, and being able to engineer his voice in this way is an extension of the technical feat of cinema,” Mercedes Kilmer said.
However, other sources at the studio told the outlet that they did not use the AI voice for Kilmer in the film. In the past, his son Jack Kilmer has helped bring his voice to life on projects. As for which one it is, we will have to wait for the official response to know.
There is no doubt that it is a very good way to bring the Iceman back after so many years. And even more impressively, voice AI helped bring Kilmer’s lines to life.
As technology improves, actors like Kilmer can continue to pursue the creative things they love, despite the odds they’ve gone through.
Kilmer humbled by fans’ reaction
Now that Top Gun: The Lone Ranger has been in theaters for a few weeks, many people are getting a chance to see Maverick and Iceman reunite. As such, Kilmer himself has seen a lot of fan reactions to his appearance in the film. He said he was humbled by the reaction of his fans.
Perhaps one of the trickiest parts of Kilmer’s appearance in Top Gun: The Lone Ranger was incorporating his real-life struggles into the character. As a result, Iceman himself was struggling with an uphill battle with throat cancer. This keeps the character from talking too much. To communicate, he uses a computer monitor with text on it for most of the entire scene. In one small instance, though, Kilmer was speaking on the spot. Kilmer’s daughter said that it is this part of the content that is achieved through AI voice.