Val Kilmer "couldn't wait to kiss" Angelina Jolie.
Val Kilmer
The 60-year-old actor was delighted to be cast as the 44-year-old beauty's husband in 2004 movie 'Alexander' because he'd had feelings for her long before then.
Val - who played King Philip to Angelina's Queen Olympia - wrote in his new memoir 'I'm Your Huckleberry': "We developed a friendship.
"I was around when Angie's mom [Marcheline Bertrand] was losing her battle with cancer. They were living in her mom's favourite hotel. Or maybe it was Angie's. I happened to be staying there myself. It was meaningful and mortal and effortless and exquisite.' "
He recalled how Angelina was single when they made the movie, having recently split from husband Billy Bob Thornton.
He wrote: "I couldn't wait to kiss Angie, buy her [a] Gulfstream jet and have V+J painted in rainbow glory on the trail.
"She had recently adopted her first child, Maddox, and the paparazzi were obsessed with this postmodern Madonna, the perfect picture of unapproachable stardom and impossibly chic maternal instinct."
The 'Top Gun' actor admitted he told 'Alexander' director Oliver Stone he would only make the movie "if the king and queen could have flashbacks to falling hard for each other and storming the castle with passion, before turning against each other."
Val was "only half kidding" but the filmmaker "didn't pick up on the humour."
The screen legend recalled how "intense" the 'By the Sea' star was.
He wrote: "When people ask me what Angelina is like, I always say she's like other women and other superstars, but just more.
"More gorgeous More wise. More tragic. More magic. More grounded. Is it worth it? Worth knowing people who require weeks of effort to understand even a little? Yes."
But when filming was over, the pair's brief romance ended and Angelina went on to fall for her 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' co-star Brad Pitt, who she married and had a further five children with before their 2016 split.
The 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' actor - who has children Jack, 24, and Mercedes, 28, with ex-wife Joanne Whalley and previously also dated the likes of Cher and Cindy Crawford - admitted his most devastating break-up was the end of his relationship with Daryl Hannah in 2001.
He wrote: "Lord knows I've suffered heartache. But Daryl was by far the most painful of all.
"I knew I would love her with my whole heart forever and that love has lost none of its strength. I am still in love with Daryl.
"When we broke up, I cried every single day for half a year."
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