Lets get back to some of your films.
[laughs] Yeah, okay.
The first movie I saw you in was Fast
Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
I had auditioned for Judge (Reinhold)s
part, and did about ten or twelve auditions
for it, and didnt get it, but got a supporting
part as Brads bud #1 or #2, I forget which.
A lot of your scenes are on the TV version,
that they air a lot on TNT.
Are they really? Thats bizarre. I remember
my father driving me to work on that. I
was 16. I guess that makes me a child
actor, of sorts. Its been over 25 years now.
Its very interesting growing up publicly. I
was there and most of the actors were five
or six years older than me, so I was the nerd
again. Another mental note was checked off
there. [laughs]
Like American Graffiti (1973), Fast
Times turned out to have this incredible
cultural and artistic synchronicity in
terms of all the actors who went on to
greatness.
Yeah, there was a buzz in the air that there
was something excellent being created. It
was another difficult time, though. I was
Nicolas Coppola, and there was a lot of Oh,
he thinks he can be an actor because hes
Francis Coppolas nephew. So again, I had
to sort of figure out how to deal with that,
and achieve my goals if this is being put on
me. Now again, with a very young, very sensitive
mind. So it occurred to me that one, Id
have to work twice as hard as the other
actors in order to be taken seriously, and
two, that Id have to change my name.
So it was between Fast Times and Valley
Girl (1983) that Nicolas Cage was born.
Right.
You got Cage from the musician John
Cage?
John Cage and also the comic book character,
Luke Cage. I liked reading comics as a
boyI was a nerdand it was how I learned
to read, really. Then when I went to Horace
Mann Elementary School, in music class
they talked about John Cage, and I always
thought that it was such a cool name. Then I
started getting interested in that kind of
music, which is what my father listened to.
So that was the genesis of the name.
After Valley Girl, everything changed for
you.
Yeah, that was the first time I felt like I
could breathe on a movie. I walked in on that
with a new name. Nobody knew who my
uncle was. The other actors werent teasing
me about it, so I suddenly felt like I could
really relax and do what I think I can do. All I
wanted was to be on the same playing field
as everyone else. Not that I have a problem
with my name, but dont have prejudice
towards me because of my name. Just put
me on the same playing field because I think
I can do this, whether you think so or not. So
thats what Valley Girl did for me.
You did three movies with your uncle.
Since there was a familial bond in place
already, did the two of you have a sort of
shorthand in terms of how you communicated?
What happened was, Francis saw Valley
Girl and got very excited about the possibility
of me, and thats when The Cotton Club
(1984) happened, and then Peggy Sue Got
Married (1986), and all that stuff occurred.
And I liked working with him. I found him to
be very open to some far-out ideas. Peggy
Sue I didnt want to do. I actually turned it
down originally. He really went through the
paces with me on that. TriStar wanted to fire
me and he talked them out of it. I was going
for something different with that character,
and he didnt know 100% what he was getting
into when he cast me. I told him I didnt
quite know why he wanted to make the
movie, and he said, Well, its like Our
Town. So I kept turning him down, and
finally I gave in on the condition that I could
go pretty far out with the character. During
rehearsal, I came up with this idea to turn my
character (Charlie) into Pokey from the
Gumby show, and create this cartoon
character. Those were some very tense days
on the set. Every day I was going to be fired.
Kathleen (Turner) was not happy with the
performance. She thought she was going to
get the boy from Birdy (1984) and instead
she got Jerry Lewis on acid! [laughs]
But that interpretation was so appropriate,
because that guy, in every high
school in America, is a cartoon!
Exactly! Not only that, but the dreamscape
that we were playing in was very exciting to
me. So I thought since this is about the
visions a woman has when shes fainted,
maybe I could make Charlie a little more
abstract.
Every time that movies brought up
today, its your performance that people
talk about.
Thats whats so ironic because at the
time, it was really lambasted critically. The
wart on an otherwise beautiful movie, is
what one critic said, I think.
Wild at Heart (1990) is one of those
movies that keeps getting better every
time I see it. Although I have to admit
when I first saw it, I hated it.
You know whats interesting about what
youre saying now, is Ive noticed this happen
with all kinds of art forms. Apparently,
2001 got slammed when it came out. Rock
Hudson walked out of the theater. The very
things that really kind of rub us the wrong
way at first, become the things we connect
with so deeply later. Thats why I think I get
as happy with the bad reviews as I do with
the good ones. I dont want to make people
too comfortable right off the bat. If I can really
do my job well and get to the truth of
something, inevitably that might be a little bit
painful. [laughs] And thats why I try to be
careful with the movies I choose. I dont
want to have one identity. I want to keep
looking for different points of expression.
Anytime you elicit a strong emotional
response from someone, you know youre
doing your job.
You know youre doing something right,
absolutely. Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment
Weekly gave Lord of War a D-, which is
60 venice october 2005
basically failing the movie. So I thought,
Okay, I know its not a D-, otherwise we
wouldnt have David Denby from Newsweek
saying its one of the most enjoyable movies
of the year. Denbys a very important critic.
So to me, those are very interesting polarities
and it says I know Ive gotten you, Owen. I
know Ive affected you in a way that youre
going to think about this down the road. So
its actually a good review, if you think about
it that way. I actually told them to put
(Gleibermans grade of D-) on the poster, but
Lions Gate wouldnt do it. [laughs]
Tell us about the experience of making
Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and working
with Mike Figgis.
It was just a great time, all the way
around. I had a great connection with Mike
and Elisabeth Shue. Mike is music. Hes free
form and rhythm and melody and it comes
out in his direction. Hes even got music on
the set that he was composing. So we had a
connection and I hope to work with him
again some day. We did the film very quickly,
in about four weeks, and it just was painless,
I dont know why. It just seemed like
everything was linking up. It was channeled
with the real guy, John OBrien, almost. (Ed.
note: John OBrien, who wrote the novel on
which the film was based, committed suicide
shortly before principal photography
started) I felt like I was making moves that I
later on found out he had made, like the way
hed light his matches. The car he drove.
Mike wanted him to drive an old Jaguar and
I said, No, he should drive a BMW, like
every other agent in town. And he had a
BMW, and I didnt know that. His parents
came to the set and would comment on
how much I reminded them of their son. I
dont want to get too spooky about it, but it
was a very special time. We were in Johns
mind somehow.
John Woo is one of my favorite directors,
and Im a big fan of Face/Off (1995).
Tell us about that.
Face/Off for me is a personal milestone
because I felt like I was able to realize some
of my independent filmmaking dreams in a
major studio film. I was taking a lot of the
laboratory of Vampires Kiss (1989) and
points of expression that I was working on
with films like Nosferatu (1922) or The Cabinet
of Dr. Caligari (1919): early German
expressionistic film acting, and with
Face/Off, I got to do it in a huge genre picture.
John had shown me his film Bullet in
the Head (1990) and I knew when I saw that
where he would let me go. I knew his
barometer and that I could put it up against
a wall of expressionistic acting, as opposed
to naturalistic acting. Id not done that to
that level before in a big studio movie, so it
was a real personal best for me. I got to get
way outside the box.
I forgot that you executive produced
Shadow of the Vampire (2000), which
was a fictional re-telling of the production
of Nosferatu. F.W. Murnau, who
directed the latter film, is one of my
heroes.
He was amazing. Sunrise (1927) is one of
the greatest films ever made.
Nosferatu actually changed my life
when I saw it as a kid. Its one of the
movies that made me fall in love with
movies and scared me to the depths of
my soul.
Its kismet that were talking because
thats exactly the same experience I had.
My father used to bring the movies home
from Cal State and hed project them for us,
and there I was, looking at this terrifying
imagery. It was so uncomfortable and really
made me miserable, but again, like we
talked about, I began to fall in love with it.
Murnau shot it like a documentary,
which is what made it so interesting.
Wasnt it one of the first films to go on
location?
I think it might have been, yeah. What we
did in Shadow of the Vampire was pretty
thought-out and accurate in terms of the
actual events, except of course that (actor)
Max Schreck wasnt really a vampire!
[laughs] All actors by some definition are
vampires, I suppose.
I have a theory that all great actors and
filmmakers have one overlooked masterpiece,
and I think 8MM (1999) is yours. I
think its such a brave, audacious, deeply
disturbing movie.
Thank you. Im sure Joel (Schumacher) will
be happy to hear that. In a lot of ways that
movie is kind of a milestone for me, because
its my first foray into horror. To me, its a horror
film, and I hadnt really done that before.
It does have weight in my library, but it was,
as you said, overlooked and wasnt something
people could respond to at the time
because it was so dark and disturbing. Its
not how people want to spend eight bucks
to get their minds off their problems. [laughs]
If it had been made in 1971, it would
have been a hit.
But you see, those are my favorite
movies, from the 70s. Im still kind of living
that fantasy, trying to do it in 2005. But that
was the time, and those were the movies
that propelled me into wanting to go for this.
The 50s and 70s movies, for me, are the
ones that got me on the track of wanting to
be an actor.
I was watching Klute the other day,
which was made in 1971. A movie from
1985 is more dated now than that film is.
Yeah, right. I believe that. If you look at A
Clockwork Orange (1971), its like virtual
reality now. Even if you take a single frame
of that film, the amount of time Kubrick
must have put into lighting that, it just pops!
The shot of the droogies as theyre walking
out of the milk bar, its lit in a way thats
nearly digitally perfect, and he did it in 71.
Its fascinating.
Tell us what directing was like, with
Sonny (2002).
That was a great experience, too. It was a
real highlight for me. I was surrounded by
some of my favorite actors. Ive never seen
James Franco hit a false note. Hes a great
actor, and hes just fantastic in the movie.
Its a great kitchen sink drama. Did you
study the films of Karel Reisz and Tony
Richardson before you did it?
No, I didnt. It just kind of came out of me,
the way I sort of felt it. I didnt want to take
too much away from the actors. I wanted
the film to look beautiful, but I really just
wanted to focus on performance, and I got
that. I was very happy with the results.
