David Marchese

From The New York Times, this is The Interview.

I'm David Marchese.

I'm just going to lay my cards out on the table.

I think Nicolas Cage is a truly special artist and the most original and unique actor since Marlon Brando.

It's not just that he's capable of delivering beautifully naturalistic performances, like in Leaving Las Vegas, for which he won a Best Actor Oscar, or that he's jumped between romantic comedies like Moonstruck, action movies like The Rock, and unclassifiable films like Adaptation.

It's that he brings a postmodern, highly imaginative, and thrillingly risky approach to all of it.

That style, which has led to his work frequently being memed on social media, also pulls from other films, music, and painting.

And I think it takes acting far beyond realism or even, frankly, traditional judgments of good or bad.

The same devotion to originality shows up in his off-screen life, too.

Cage, whom I previously interviewed back in 2019, is a bona fide eccentric.

His idiosyncratic interests, lavish spending habits, and all-around free-spirited nature are in their own way as legendary as his highly distinct performances.

To what else can I say?

Other than that, there's no one like him.

The latest evidence is the new series Spider Noir, which viewers can watch in either color or black and white.

The show is Cage's first big swing at television.

In it, he plays Ben Reilly, a hard-boiled private investigator in 1930s New York who, in a very Cage-ian mashup, also happens to be a web-slinging superhero.

Here's my conversation with the great Nicolas Cage.

Nick, thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

I appreciate it.

We'll pick up where we left off.