Val Kilmer (Top Secret, 1984)
Top Secret is an absurdist cross between a war movie and an Elvis movie, starring Val Kilmer as American singer Nick Rivers, who goes behind enemy lines and falls in love with a German woman fighting fascists. Its many brilliant set pieces — including a scene shot backwards and a scene where a station pulls away from a train — build up to an underwater Western-style fistfight.
Directors David Zucker and Jim Abrahams told ScreenCrush in 2014 that the actors in the scene held their breath while they shot in 10 or 15 second increments, then returned to the surface. “The hardest part was not laughing and running out of oxygen,” said Kilmer. “I got my [diving] certificate for that sequence and still enjoy diving today!”
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