The Doors is a 1991 American biographical film about the 1960–70s rock band of the same name which emphasizes the life of its lead singer, Jim Morrison. It was directed by Oliver Stone, and stars Val Kilmer as Morrison and Meg Ryan as Pamela Courson (Morrison’s companion). The film portrays Morrison as the larger-than-life icon of 1960s rock and roll, counterculture, and the drug-using free love hippie lifestyle. But the depiction goes beyond the iconic: his alcoholism, interest in hallucinogenic drugs as entheogens, and, particularly, his growing obsession with death are threads which weave in and out of the film. The surviving Doors members were all to one degree or another unhappy with the final product, and were said to have heavily criticized Stone’s portrayal of Morrison as an “out of control sociopath.” When Stone began talking about the project in 1988, he had Val Kilmer in mind to play Morrison after seeing him in the Ron Howard fantasy film Willow. Kilmer had the same kind of singing voice as Morrison and to convince Stone that he was right for the role, spent several thousand dollars of his own money and made his own eight-minute video, singing and looking like Morrison at various stages of his life. To prepare for the role, Kilmer lost weight and spent six months rehearsing Doors songs every day. The actor learned 50 songs, 15 of which are actually performed in the film. Kilmer also spent hundreds of hours with Paul Rothchild, who told him, “anecdotes, stories, tragic moments, humorous moments, how Jim thought, what were my interpretation of Jim’s lyrics,” the music producer said. Rothchild also took Kilmer into the studio and helped him in “some pronunciations, idiomatic things that Jim would do that made the song sound like Jim”.