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Chapter 1: What fuels Nicolas Cage's creativity?
Criticism has been a huge fuel for me, like a creative writing prompt. If you couldn't tell, that is Taylor Swift, who hasn't sat for an interview like this in a long time. I'm John Caramonica, one of the critics behind the New York Times' 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters Project. We interviewed some of the songwriters on our list, and these are not ordinary conversations.
Watch all the video interviews for free and check out the entire 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters Project at nytimes.com slash 30greatest or in the app.
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.
Thanks, David. Thanks for having me back. I enjoyed our last conversation seven years ago in Nevada.
We'll pick up where we left off. Okay. which I don't remember, but where I wanted to start, I just watched the speech you gave to graduates at Cal State Fullerton. This is probably something like 25 years ago. Going way back. And in that speech, you said, artists have the license to go straight up the devil's ass, smile at him, and survive. When have you done that?
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Chapter 2: How does Nicolas Cage define his acting style?
I'm not saying go out and do something dangerous, but I'm saying sometimes you have to allow your psyche, if you will, to embrace that dark corner of your mind. And I think that's partially what I was talking about in that speech about As you reiterated, go up the devil's ass.
It's not always a fun process to go there, to go back in that dark corner of your mind or that memory or even look around you at current events in a newspaper to get to that place where you feel the emotion and you feel the grief or you feel the anger so that you don't feel like you're faking it.
Have you ever done what you just described? Sort of used the world outside? Sort of looked at current events to motivate?
Certainly. I remember specifically on a little movie I made called Joe. Joe, yeah.
David Gordon Green, yeah.
And... I was having trouble getting to that feeling of intense anger. And without mentioning names, I recalled a newspaper article I read about a little boy who was at the zoo. And he fell into a... well, a cage or an environment of wild painted dogs, the African painted dogs, and they ate the child alive. And I remember getting very upset about it, that how could something like that happen?
And so in that scene, I was upset that this child that I was sort of mentoring or guiding was the victim of domestic abuse and of his sister was potentially going to be abducted for other disturbing and horrible things, atrocities. And so I went and looked at that current event at that time, and then it got me there. So that would be an example.
You know, it's interesting when actors talk about the psychological or emotional risks of performance, they often talk about it in the context of darker emotions. Does it feel risky or difficult to get to the more positive emotions?
So that's a really perfect question. And if I wake up in the morning... to use a cliche, on the wrong side of the bed. And I have to be funny, funny, funny, and happy, happy, happy, and dance, dance, dance, and this and this, bright and sparkling and poppy. That is more difficult. That is much more challenging. Well, how do you get there? You become a specialist in compartmentalizing.
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Chapter 3: What unique choices has Cage made in his film roles?
And the results on that, I think, are terrific. I think that that was a great union. Joel, Ethan, and myself and Holly, I think we got somewhere together that was remarkably funny. But at the time, it was right on the edge. And then Vampire's Kiss, of course, I mean, I was really... struggling on that one because I had a very specific vision of what I wanted.
I wanted to bring a Max Schreck-like style back into the sort of 80s, yuppie, this is before American Psycho, attitude of like the literary agent who's going to the best restaurants and he's going on dates. And And then slowly devolving into a vampire and thinking he is a vampire. And that I wanted to bring out the Shrek-like behavior.
And I did the horrible thing that I don't need to go back to with the ingestion of that thing. Cockroach. Yeah. Well, all that was me trying to make a big noise to say, we're going to do this. We're going to do something different.
But some of those performances that you just mentioned bring to mind a question I had that's going to be a little in the weeds for most people other than you, me, and Nicolas Cage fans. But I'm going to do it anyway. So I think one of the innovative things that you brought to acting was almost a kind of sort of like a postmodern, almost metatextual element to it.
where you would take elements from genres that were outside of film and performance and sort of outside of the character you were trying to play and import them into what you were doing. So I'll give examples.
I remember when I spoke to you last time, I asked you about the scream that you gave in a movie called Rage, and you explained that you were trying to emulate some sort of Stockhausen sonic effect with that. Or in Face Off, there's a moment where your character sort of goes up behind a schoolgirl and your face raises up and you're giving a Francis Bacon-style look to the camera.
Or in Mandy, there's a scene, I think your character's in a car, and you look quickly at the camera and the camera zooms in to a close-up like a Bruce Lee movie. there's any number of other examples, like the Woody Woodpecker raising Arizona. I could keep going, but are there similar examples of you doing that kind of technique that you haven't seen remarked on?
Like, when have you done that and people have not noticed?
Well, I don't know if they've known the specifics that went into the choices in terms of what you're calling metatextual, I would call the art synthesis concept that I was dabbling in, where I could pull from other art forms and have them inform my performance. And I like to take from places, whether it's in film performance, like you mentioned, Bruce Lee, or whether it's in
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Chapter 4: How does Cage incorporate personal experiences into his performances?
I can do it with you because we can talk the same language sometimes. But For example, with Jen Salke at Amazon, I went over to her house and we all sat there. All the powers that be were there. And I just said, you know, it doesn't matter if a 13-year-old doesn't know who Humphrey Bogart is. The point is it works. It works. I know it works.
And I remember thinking, calling Jen, saying, you don't have to only do it in black and white. You can also do it in color. And then they can hopscotch back and check it out in black and white. And then lo and behold, maybe they'll want to see The Big Sleep or Maltese Falcon.
You know, I had zero interest in watching the color version.
Thank you. Well, I think folks like us, real film enthusiasts, will go with the black and white. But I'm hoping that the 13-year-olds, the 15-year-olds, whomever, will see the color and go, well, let me try the black and white. And I think they will. I mean, there's a real... Are we doing spoilers in this interview? Well, it's fine with me. You're the one who has to decide.
I mean, I really wanted to see a version of Spider-Man that was grappling with the arachnid DNA that was flowing through his bloodstream and having to retrain himself as to how to be human.
I have a couple more questions about acting, but before I do, there's something I was curious about related to spiders. I know you've had a lot of exotic pets. Have you had a spider?
Oh, sure. Sure, I've had spiders. Tarantulas. Well, I even learned a little bit about the movement of spiders, and I put that in the script. Spiders don't have muscles. Their appendages are like straws. They shoot fluid. So the fluid is making their appendages move, which is fascinating to me. It's like a party whistle. All that went into the script.
There is a spider that I found fascinating, which is listed as one of the more intelligent animals. And it's called the Portia spider. And this spider is so intelligent, it literally knows what bug likes which tune on his web. So he knows what to play to get the fly, and he knows what to play to get the grasshopper. And that's really something that exists. I thought that was fascinating.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Cage face in portraying complex emotions?
I'm now 62. And I'm still here. And I wanted to do this movie Madden. I didn't know how I was going to be able to buy the time to get to Madden. And I didn't want to do a commercial. And so along comes Gunslingers. And I thought, okay, I'm a cameo in this movie. Let's have some fun with it. Could the movie be good? I don't know. The director seems like a nice guy.
But what can I bring that I'm going to find amusing? And I remembered... going on Dick Cavett a million years ago with Miles Davis.
And Miles was like, he was sort of like, Nick.
Yes, sir.
Where's your leather jacket?
My leather jacket?
Yeah, you know nothing from Dennis? Dennis? Hopper, man, what are you wearing that suit for?
Well, I, you know, and then I was on the show doing this with my hair. It was sticking up like Woody Woodpecker, again, back to Raising Arizona. And then I had this trumpet with me, and I wanted Miles to teach me how to play the trumpet. And then the trumpet fell down behind me.
He was like, you be careful with that instrument.
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Chapter 6: How does Cage view the concept of fame and public perception?
I wasn't riffing Tony at all. I was doing my own thing, which is interesting because I saw a screening of that movie with Spike Jonze, who had... directing me an adaptation. And he loved that performance. And then I saw his Beastie Boys video. I think it was called... What was the video? Rampage? They were all in like... Sabotage? Sabotage.
And they're all in like these bad wigs and they all... And these terrible sunglasses. They all look like Eddie from Deadfall. I was like, oh, okay. I think I know where that came from. But no, I was... That was another movie I didn't want to make, and I felt like I had to because it was my brother, and I said, okay, I'll do it. Your brother directed it.
Yeah, what can I do that will make it interesting for me? And what can I bring to this? So I just went full –
id release just full um i didn't care if it made sense or it didn't i just wanted to do this like live wire performance in a bad wig and an upturned nose so the nose kind of went out and then up like that and i'm just i i'm very proud of that performance uh i i i do i do think it uh i think it endures
After the break, Nick and I talk about his resistance to becoming a caricature of himself.
Maybe there's an element of like, gosh, I really want to see Nick go off the rails, and I'm not going to give them that every time, and I hope they're not disappointed.
I'm Debra Kamen. I'm an investigative reporter at The New York Times. When I say real estate, I'm guessing you're thinking about things like the cost of rent, what the market looks like, whether or not mortgage rates are going to go up. What I do is I look at what goes on beneath those numbers. The people running the industry, who for so many years have been relatively invisible.
And the more that I look into it, the more that I find there are people operating unethically. And their unethical behavior affects every single American. If we only focus on the numbers, it's like covering the results of an election and not looking at the politicians. To know why the system is the way it is, you have to understand the people making decisions behind it.
At The New York Times, we don't ever tell a story at just the top level. We're always looking a little bit deeper to help readers better understand not just what something is, but why it is and also who's causing it to be that way. You can subscribe to The New York Times at nytimes.com slash subscribe.
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Chapter 7: What does Cage believe about the importance of artistic risk?
Okay. So here's the first one. Vampire's Kiss, there was a sex scene and you asked to have hot yogurt poured on your toes during the sex scene?
There was some yogurt. There wasn't hot yogurt. And I think I was administering the yogurt to myself. But why? I don't really remember.
Yeah. Who knows? It's better that you don't. Yeah, probably. Okay, next one. There was an old Playboy interview from maybe mid-'80s, late-'80s, something like that, and there's just an offhand reference to stealing an aquarium from the Museum of Modern Art. Oh. Did that happen?
Yeah, well, it wasn't an aquarium, and it was in California, and it was a— It was in the trash. It was a Lucite box that covers art artifacts, and I just took it, and I used it as an enclosure for a kingsnake. So not stealing, technically. No, not really. No, it was in trash.
I would say, yeah, reusing. Trash picking.
Sure.
All right, last one for now. I might come back to some others. So apparently at Graceland, there's a private family-only area. And I read that you were granted access to the private area and tried on some of the king's clothes and sat in the bathroom in the same position that Elvis was found in when he was found dead. Is that true?
No, that's not true at all. What is true is, you know, my ex-wife and I... Lisa Marie Presley. When it was great, we were very close and we had a lot of laughs. And there were a couple of nights at Graceland where... She wanted to go upstairs, and so I did. And I remember lying in Elvis's bed, and he had this, you know those little fiber optics things that spin and change colors?
Like a lava lamp? Not a lava lamp, but not unlike a lava lamp. Little fiber optics and it rotates and then they can change colors like green and blue and little plastic like strings, like whiskers that stand out and they can change colors. They're usually sitting on top of a light box that changes colors as it rotates. And I remember staring at that and being very relaxed by it and calmed by it.
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Chapter 8: How does Cage see his future in acting and personal life?
No. Now I'm 62. Sure. I think I know what to do and what not to do, whether it's at home or in a restaurant or out in public, whatever. First thing I do is I don't go out if I don't think I can meet people well. That's a choice. And when I do meet someone, I know what it means to meet someone that I admire and have them ruin your day by being unkind.
My favorite pillars of the human spirit, which I'm a big believer in, are kindness, compassion, wisdom, and love. And I want to embody those pillars when I meet people.
Who was the hero you met that was not kind to you? I hear you, man.
I don't want to say it because I still love him. And I don't want to. He's extremely famous. I mean, I don't want to upset him.
Yeah. And sort of a two-part question. Do you envision, if not retiring, at least sort of ramping down the amount of time you spend acting, especially given that you have such a young child at home? Definitely.
Yeah.
And then what would you do if you weren't acting so often? Because I know in the past you've said things like, you know, you need to act to live. So how would you fill that space?
Again, David, I'm all about my toddler. I mean, she takes... 80% of my energy, and I'm focused on that. So it's not about how can I fill the time. It's more about can I find the time that I can be there to nurture her and guide her. And I'm lucky right now because she's young enough that as long as we – can travel together and I can come home to her, that's good.
But yeah, that is on my mind, how I'm going to compartmentalize my time.
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