Will Forte says not doing The Amazing Race with Val Kilmer is his biggest regret (2025)

Will Forte and Val Kilmer worked together on MacGruber, where they became good friends. In fact, when Kilmer needed a place to stay after “having a dispute with his landlord,” he moved in with Forte for nearly three months. Forte wrote a lovely remembrance of this time for Vulture and mentioned that one of his biggest regrets is not appearing on The Amazing Race with Kilmer. Pardon?

“I used to watch‘The Amazing Race,’ and he came back home at some point when I was watching it and was like, ‘What are you watching that garbage for? Come on, that stuff’s going to rot your mind.’ I said, ‘It’s pretty good. You should sit down and watch it. Give it a try before you s—t on it,’” Forte explained. “So he sat down and he started watching it, and he got really into it. Then, at a certain point, he said, ‘Will, you and I have to go do‘The Amazing Race.’ We have to. Let’s do‘The Amazing Race.’” I’m like, ‘I am so fully in.’“

Forte continued, “We got really excited about it, and then we called our respective agents and managers, and they were like, ‘There’s no way you guys are doing that.’ That is, maybe to this day, the biggest regret of my whole career — that I never did‘The Amazing Race’with Val. I think we would’ve gotten out very quickly, but it just would’ve been the experience of a lifetime.” It would have been something, that’s for sure.

When Forte was preparing to film MacGruber, he was really nervous about being around Kilmer for fear that he’d leave the movie, but he quickly found out that Kilmer was the type of man who would literally give you the shirt off his back.

“I remember one time, I got to set, and he was wearing this red plaid shirt. I said, ‘Oh man, that’s my kind of shirt! That is right up my alley!’ And he just took the shirt off and said, ‘This is yours now,’” Forte said. “Then he was just sitting there with his shirt off, fully exposed to the world, while we continued to talk. Without even thinking, he literally gave me the shirt off his back. He was the most interesting person in the world, because there were so many elements to his personality. He was incredibly funny and incredibly smart. He could be super-silly and then turn around and be a little frickin’ devil — but a sweet little devil. Life is more vivid when you’re hanging out with Val.“

The loss of Val Kilmer, who was just 65, is a tough one. The man gave us such incredible performances in so many fantastic movies. Although throat cancer had robbed him of his voice, it was such a delight to see him return in Top Gun: Maverick as Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky.