If you needed proof for why we devoted an entire week to Nicolas Cage, look no further than this interview with Variety supporting Mom And Dad at TIFF 2017. The former dinosaur skull owner was exactly the guy you expect him to be during this chat, fully capturing the notion that he’s a “force of nature” when it comes to acting — a term he doesn’t really mesh with as you’ll see.
Sitting with co-stars Selma Blair, Anne Winters, and director Brian Taylor, Cage seems to control the interview without actually trying to do so. That’s no criticism and actually just seems like the natural order of things. The actor compares Taylor and himself to Kurosawa and Mifune after having worked together on Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance. He then gives a classic response to the idea of going “over the top” in a scene:
“You show me where the top is, and I’ll let you know whether I’m over it or not, all right? I design where the top is”
Cage then says that acting is a spiritual thing for him before making sure it’s known that it isn’t his preferred term for what he does in a film. While Taylor describes working with Cage as trying to control the weather, the Oscar winner has another way of looking at the profession:
“I don’t even like the word acting anymore because it implies lying in some way. I don’t act, I feel.”
For all the talk of Jared Leto and his method acting over the years, it seems like folks have gone to sleep on Nicolas Cage. While he possibly lives up to the internet myth that has been built around him, he also seems to fully be behind the work he’s doing. He also has no interest in appearing in anything but movies it seems, saying Taylor initially wanted him for a television project and he said, “I can’t do TV, I’m an effing movie star.”
If one thing is clear from his previous media appearances, he’s definitely a movie star.
(Via Variety)
