Nicolas Cage

In "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," Nicolas Cage leans into the stylized acting that made him a pop culture icon.

There’s a running bit in “Massive Talent” about the cinematic achievement of “ Paddington 2,” the sequel to the live-action and animated film adaptation of a children’s story about a raincoat-wearing bear. “When I was in quarantine all I was doing was watching movies and I made some lists,” he said, pulling a few of them out of his suit pocket. “I did make a choice to try and work with my voice, enhancing what I would call the California draaawl.” “Sometimes the reality is in the stylization,” Cage said, emphasizing that naturalism and truthfulness are not always identical. Gormican said Cage was the best-prepared actor he’d ever seen; he and Horgan were both in awe that the actor was completely off-book at a table read before shooting. Although the Oscar winner “was terrified the whole time” they filmed, he was persuaded by Gormican’s sincerity and willingness to create deeper human relationships for his character. And while he is known for leaning into the ridiculous, it’s his most naturalistic performances that stand out to both audiences and actor. “People associate him with bombastic performances, which is not totally untrue, but he had the presence to carry this quiet movie without many lines, and with a lot of soul,” Sarnoski said. “I knew I had to send myself up quite a bit but didn’t want it to lapse into just mockery,” he said during an interview in a New York hotel. He can transcend the character and even the film he’s in.” The director said he and Kevin Etten wrote the script with Cage in mind, even as people who knew the actor warned them there was “not a chance in hell” he’d sign on. In “ The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Tom Gormican’s rollicking comedy out Friday, he does just that.

"I once went to an Italian restaurant in San Francisco about 25 years ago with Charlie Sheen because they had square tube pasta and he was very interested in ...

"There's no version of Nic Cage that didn't put family first over career. Eater SF launched a search, enlisting San Francisco locals to help find the name of the restaurant — and in turn the pasta — that Cage visited over two decades ago. "First and foremost ... there's no version of Nic Cage in reality that doesn't want to spend time with his children," he said. Cage also spoke to PEOPLE about putting his family first when it comes to career opportunities. After sifting through responses from local food columnists, San Francisco natives and Twitter users, the outlet posted a query in a San Francisco Remembered Facebook group. He shared some advice he'd tell his younger self starting out in the movie industry.

NEW YORK (AP) — “Metropolis.” Bruce Lee. Woody Woodpecker. A pet cobra. All of these things have been inspirations behind Nicolas Cage performances ...

From Moonstruck to Mandy, it's time to weigh in on one of cinema's most charismatic oddballs.

11 / 11 But for straight-up enjoyment, I’ll head for his screwball performance as commitmentphobe Jack Singer in 1992’s Honeymoon In Vegas. The plot makes little sense as a kind of sexist Indecent Proposal comedy, a few years before that movie even came out, as Cage somehow loses a massive bet in a poker game to gambler Tommy (James Caan), and has to offer Tommy his girlfriend Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker) for the weekend to get out of it. Probably almost as enjoyable as it was for me, baptized into the church of Cage via Face/Off. As a proud churchgoer, I still kneel at the altar of John Woo’s masterpiece. The man who steered a loose cannon like Klaus Kinski to his finest performances seems like a natural pairing for Cage’s unpredictability, and Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans backs that suspicion up. An immortal action hero wielding an ax one minute and an emotional man of multitudes pondering the depths of grief the next, Cage channels his most subtle and extreme acting talents into one hyper-compelling character. In their sophomore effort—a decidedly comedic, zany, energized, quotable about-face from Simple—Cage carries the movie as an ex-con thief who, to become a straight-laced family man, steals a baby from a wealthy couple with “more than they could handle.” The actor supposedly butted heads with the Coens by suggesting changes to the character, but none of that friction shows on the screen: Whether he’s getting the shit kicked out of him by a biker, telling his boss to “Keep your goddamn hands off my wife,” laughing dumbly with a particularly dumb pair of brothers, or quietly tip-toeing through a brightly colored nursery, he gives a knockout comedic performance. Since Jack already sniped the objectively correct answer here, I’ll go with another one of Cage’s own personal favorites: Bringing Out The Dead. Martin Scorsese’s pitch-black paramedic drama is the rare film where Cage is giving the most restrained performance in any given room, as co-pilots John Goodman, Ving Rhames, and Tom Sizemore all swing for the rafters. Vanessa Block and director Michael Sarnoski’s tale of a stolen truffle pig doubles as a study of grief, and requires a level of expectation-subverting that perhaps only Cage is capable of. Nicolas Cage was still just getting started as an actor when he took the role of Sailor Ripley in the 1990 film, which may explain why it so vividly captured my imagination; he hadn’t yet fully showcased his “nouveau shamanic” acting style, so to watch him channel Elvis Presley—not just as an Elvis fan, but Elvis incarnate—was a mesmerizing spectacle. As a speed-metal fever-dream reimagining of The Wizard Of Oz, David Lynch’s Wild At Heart is so full of odd and wonderful performances that virtually any of them deserve to become favorites among the cast members’ individual filmographies. There are few Nic Cage quotes as iconic as “Chrissy, bring me the big knife!” which he utters as the hand-less, wife-less Ronny Cammerari in Moonstruck. Cage’s performance helps elevate the 1987 film from a melodramatic rom-com about an ill-fated marriage to a story about two tortured people who need each other. The question is simple: What is your favorite Nicolas Cage performance, and why?

Nicolas Cage stars in a new film about Nicolas Cage that successively drives home why Nicolas Cage is an essential movie star.

Pascal — whose sensitive, goofy performance is a surprise — gives an emotional speech about how he and his father were brought together by “Guarding Tess.” Hilarious. Cage heightens his already big personality just the right amount to ensure that the film rises above a skit. While Hollywood is becoming more self-serious than they’ve ever been and clearly cannot take a joke — hello, Will Smith! — it’s good to have guys like him around. The argument? Haters of Nicolas Cage, stop reading this now. To quote the actor in the satirical “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”: “I’m motherf–king Nicolas Cage!”

In the action comedy The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent, Nicolas Cage plays a fictionalized Nicolas Cage. This down-on-his-luck version of the actor ...

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Born Nicolas Kim Coppola, Cage is the nephew of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Shortly after landing a role in the 1982 comedy Fast Times at ...

Recently, Cage’s career has seen a resurgence of interest following the performers’ string of straight-to-VOD films. Born Nicolas Kim Coppola, Cage is the nephew of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Shortly after landing a role in the 1982 comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Cage opted to change his name after racking up a few film credits under the Coppola name. One of the most recognized performers of his generation, Cage’s formidable career has spanned three decades with roles in iconic films.

Nicolas Cage is the latest celebrity to tackle the WIRED Autocomplete Interview — and it didn't disappoint as the actor went all in. In the eight-minute ...

Nicolas Cage in the film Mandy, covered in blood and grinning and generally seeming like. Screengrab via YouTube. For something that everyone agrees is ...

After a brief moment to remember the time that Prince took it upon himself to redecorate Carlos Boozer’s home, and despite an unexpected timing out of the lighting in Gabriella’s location that briefly plunged our podcast into darkness, we ventured into the Funbag. There we found questions on the best practices for traveling alone, and a prompt to consider songs ruined by repetition in film or television. Drew, as readers and listeners likely know, has written a number of such profiles, and while I am mostly not permitted to be around important or influential people (I have been told that they find me unsettling) I have at the very least read a bunch of good and bad versions of those stories. Yes, its purpose is often advertorial for some film or TV property, and yes there is no guarantee that you’re going to get anything interesting out of even an interesting performer who has answered similar questions dozens of times and mostly is just trying to get through some publicist-chaperoned lunch or other.

Nicolas Cage has been in over 100 productions. In his most recent films, he is showing some of the finest acting of his career.

The first is a Lovecraftian tale of meteors, glowing goo and hostile alpacas. The “Cage Rage”, as it has become known, is there in full technicolour detail. When the pig is kidnapped, Cage re-enters the world, intent on finding his only true companion. Sean Penn, his contemporary and early rival, disparagingly called him a “performer”. Cage referred to himself as a thespian, a troubadour entertaining the mob. For sure, there were missteps along the way as he navigated his new-found status: the tabloid press had a field day reporting on his lavish spending. His nerdiness and ad-libbing was a refreshing antidote to the muscular action stars. Gone is the Elvis coolness of Wild At Heart (1990), the physical dexterity of National Treasure (2004) and the childlike blankness of City of Angels (1998). In Pig, Cage is bloated and bearded, wracked by grief and remorse. But the wheels soon fell off. Nor is he George Clooney, who has traded stardom for activism and advocacy. But best of all is Pig (2021). Here, Cage plays a grieving chef who has retreated to the Oregon wilderness with only a truffle-hunting pig for company. Co-stars were both baffled and bewildered. Cage shortly became a fully-fledged 90s action hero, with roles in The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997) and Face/Off (1997).