During a recent Vanity Fair interview with “Willow” showrunner Jonathan Kasdan, the screenwriter talked extensively about his love for the original 1988 film and how he fought to bring the characters back for a new story and for a modern audience. Interestingly enough, Kasdan revealed that he asked Kilmer to be involved pretty early on in the show’s production cycle, but the logistics of bringing the character back to be a big, central part of the series was difficult, given Kilmer’s throat cancer and difficulty with speaking. However, that doesn’t mean that the actor isn’t a part of the show.
“I approached Val the moment there was any momentum around this,” Kasdan said. “I told him instantly that I wanted him to be a part of the story. He really wanted to be, and he was determined to be. And like a lot of things that happened, COVID made him flying to Wales in that moment very hard.” Kasdan further elaborated that there was never any intention of killing off Madmartigan. “It seemed too sad to all of us, and frankly not right for the story we were telling, that Madmartigan was dead,” he said. “And as a result, he is not in this world. He comes back by the end of the season in as meaningful a way as we felt we could, while leaving the door open to continue to build it out.”
So while Kilmer may not be a central character, Kasdan definitely seems to realize that Madmartigan is a big part of what made “Willow” work as well as it does for a lot of fans of the original film. Even having him appear in a cameo setting is a big deal, and it’ll be interesting to see how the story works around Kilmer’s very real-life health issues.
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