Bizarre run-ins with noted eccentrics are part of life in Hollywood. Fortunately for the rest of us, Seth Rogen finds them equally hilarious and is happy to share his stories. Like the time he had to explain internet porn to Tom Cruise, or the time Cruise tried to sell Rogen on Scientology. But those tales pale in comparison to one extremely awkward dinner that began with Nicolas Cage delivering a monologue in a Jamaican accent.
While appearing on The Howard Stern Show, Rogen and Stern got to talking about The Green Hornet, the 2011 superhero movie Rogen wrote and produced with Evan Goldberg, and also starred in. While the film was in development, Sony was pushing the idea of Cage as the villain. While Rogen is a “huge fan” of the actor, he admitted to having some trepidation because, “There are a lot of Nicolas Cages… And you don’t know what Nicolas Cage you’re going to get.”
It didn’t take long for Rogen to get a glimpse at which version of Cage he might see in The Green Hornet:
“We got a phone call that he wants to play a white Bahamian man—it was pitched as a white Jamaican guy basically, which set off a lot of alarms. Not that a white Jamaican man is bad, but doing the accent and all this stuff just seemed like it was a world of trouble.”
Eventually, then-Sony head Amy Pascal suggested they all get together at her house to discuss the project. What happened next was not wholly unexpected, but it was uncomfortable:
“Literally we showed up and within 60 seconds we were all seated in the living room as he stands in front of us reciting a monologue in a Jamaican accent… A monologue, I should add, that is not in the script. Nor did it have anything to do with the script… There was no indication that he had any idea what film we were trying to make in any way, really. Other than that it was called The Green Hornet and there was a villain.
So he does his whole thing… and then it ends and it’s a though he just landed a backflip and he’s waiting for the applause. And everyone looks to me to express the group reaction to this and I was so uncomfortable… I didn’t know what to say. I was like, ‘It was ok. Cool, thanks. We should talk about it. That’s not how we pictured the character.’ And I clearly didn’t give him the reaction he wanted because he instantly was just sullen.”
Pascal attempted to quell the awkwardness by suggesting they sit down for dinner, Cage clearly wasn’t over the fact that he hadn’t blown them all away with his performance. Just as they all sat down, Rogen said Cage got up and told them he had to go. And then just left.
The story didn’t end there though. You can watch the full clip above—including the post-script, in which Cage requested another meeting a couple of years later and subtly accused Rogen of telling James Franco about his “performance,” as Cage believed Franco’s Spring Breakers character was based on him.
Hollywood!
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)
