VENICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCT 2005 - NICOLAS CAGE FORUM

Members Login

Post Info

TOPIC: VENICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCT 2005

Lady Trueheart

Nicalicious

Status: Offline

Posts: 6722

Date: 12:36 AM, 08/11/11

VENICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCT 2005	Permalink

Here is the interview that goes along with the pictures that Gina posted in the magazine covers forum. This article was posted a few years ago at CageFactor by Mara, one of our wonderful moderators here. She copied it from a .pdf file so the format is different from the magazine. It is a really great interview!!! Thanks to Bonnie and Mara who originally found and posted it. NICOLAS CAGE KNOWS WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS BY ALEX SIMON PHOTOGRAPHY GREG GORMAN GROOMING ILONA HERMAN LOCATION FOUR SEASONS LOS ANGELES AT BEVERLY HILLS VENICE OCT 2005 Part 1 Its an inevitable event in every accomplished artists life: if you go back on the timeline of their existence and stop in adolescence, almost all of our greatest actors, writers, filmmakers, musicians, and painters went through tumultuous, tortured teenage years, often scorned, almost universally ridiculed by their peers and elders alike for the cardinal sin of being weird. Most people run from their inner nerd as they grow into adulthood, masking it behind toned muscle, fine clothing, and the right haircut, struggling to be that cool guy or gal who we knew had all the answers and the clearest skin back when such things started to be de rigeur in our lives (and if you live in Southern California, continue to be). Nicolas Cage is that rare movie star who not only never seemed to care if he was cool, but was one of the few that seemed to run from it, embracing his inner nerd and quirky weirdness wholeheartedly. Yes, he cut quite the impressive figure in the series of box office smash action films he was in: buff bod, cool wardrobe, good with a gun, and almost inevitably got the hot chick in the end, Bond style. However, unlike 007, who is always seen in the final fade out with a dry martini in one hand and a supermodel with a PhD in astrophysics on the other, Nic Cage would turn around wearing horn-rimmed glasses and reading a mint condition issue of Spiderman #2, with a grin that seemed to say **** you, Johnny Cool, Im still a geek! And herein lies the brilliance of one of our greatest actors. Cage was born Nicholas Kim Coppola on January 7, 1964, in Long Beach, California, the youngest of three sons born to August Coppola, a professor of comparative literature, and Joy Vogelsang, a classically trained dancer and choreographer. Born into one of Americas premiere artistic families, Nics father is the eldest sibling of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire. Their father, Carmine Coppola, was an accomplished musician, composer and conductor, who composed much of the music for son Francis films, until his death in 1991. Life was not easy for young Nic, who sought refuge first in his imagination, and then on the stage and in front of the camera. After graduating high school early (he is not a dropout as has been reported in the past), Nic landed his first feature film role (as Nicolas Coppola) in the classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) in a part that was mostly left on the cutting room floor. The following year, Nic starred (as the newly-christened Nicolas Cage) in the sleeper hit Valley Girl, which made him one of his generations most prolific and acclaimed actors. The momentum hasnt stopped since, with Nic having starred in over 50 features, producing nine, and directing one (2002s Sonny). Nic won the 1995 Best Actor Academy Award (as well as a Golden Globe, and the L.A. and NY Film Critics Awards) for his searing performance in Mike Figgis Leaving Las Vegas. Nic was nominated in the same category for his brilliant turn as identical twin screenwriters in Adaptation (2003). Whether hes playing an inbred trailer park denizen who longs to give his wife a child (Raising Arizona, 1987), an Elvis-obsessed hipster on the lam with his true love (Wild at Heart, 1990), or an ambulance driver teetering on the brink of madness (Martin Scorseses Bringing Out the Dead, 1999), Nic Cage is one of the cinemas great chameleons: although he often changes colors with the diverse parts he plays, his quirky intensity and unpredictability make him completely riveting to watch. Even in some of his lesser films, Cage has never given a lesser performance. Nicolas Cage graces the screen in two wildly diverse pictures this fall. Andrew Niccols Lord of War features Nic as a charismatic arms dealer who finds himself slowly selling his soul, piece-by-piece, as his fortunes increase. Gore Verbinskis The Weather Man stars Nic as Dave Spritz, a Chicago television weather man who finds life in the shadow of his father (Michael Caine, always a treat to watch), a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, has eclipsed him and his own identity. Lord of War is in release currently, and The Weather Man hits screens October 28. Nic Cage sat down with Venice recently to discuss film, philosophy, and the liberation of embracing your inner nerd. Heres what transpired: Venice: You have two very different films out right now. Lets talk about Lord of War first. Andrew Niccol has always been a very interesting filmmaker. Nicolas Cage: Yeah, he does have an opinion and unique ways of expressing it. I think Lord of War is more of a departure for him in terms of the far-out, science-fiction that hes done in the past. This is more of a cinema-verité style of film, which makes it a little bit more uncomfortable, as well, because its in your face. Its a glaring opinion, with a trigger. I liked its politics, too, and also the fact that he never crossed the line and made it a polemic. Some people have accused him of that, but it felt to me that it still seemed anchored in storytelling and didnt become, in my opinion, too preachy. It also had a certain amount of ambiguity, which allowed the viewer to draw his/her own conclusions. Thats the most important thing with any form of expression, or art form: to allow people to come up with their own interpretation of the piece. All the greatest art, in my opinion, has been enigmatic art forms. Stanley Kubrick, to me, was a master of that. He never tried to preach what he was trying to do, and he would never give the interviews telling exactly what it was, because if he had, it would have robbed you of your own personal connection with the piece. I have tried to adopt that philosophy, but its very hard for an actor to do it, somehow. The more I say (about my work) the more it will detract from your own appreciation of the performance or the movie. Do you find the experience of working with a writer/director, like Andrew Niccol, different from working with just a straight director, like Gore Verbinski? I think when youre working with a writer/director, there can be a tendency to be split-focused. Ironically, theyre more interested in the camera than the actual libretto, if you will. Sometimes, even with Andrew, Id say, Lets go back to our blueprint for a minute, back to the script, and hed be on to other things having to do with the camera or music, or something technical, and Id have to steer him back to what he wrote. Hed actually make jokes about it: Let me ask the writer. Whoops! I am the writer. [laughs] The Weather Man was a movie that grew on me as I watched it. I found it alternately hilarious, touching, and really frustrating. I also admired the fact that it had the courage to be about characters who arent what we usually think of as being sympathetic. 56 venice october 2005 I was surrounded by that kind of frequency, of artistic energy, that was always around my family. When Id visit my Uncle Francis, it was everywhere. Its the kind of thing where, its madness. Theres a level of it thats so eccentric and zany, that if youre not careful, it can catch like wildfire and burn you down. But at the same time, thats the very stuff that makes people charismatic and fascinating to watch. The trick is, how do you keep a balance with it and not blow yourself out. And its actually more honest, too. Lets face it, were all making mistakes and trying to do the best we can with them and prevent them from happening, but its easier to relate to a character thats made mistakes that we have in common with them. Ive certainly made my share of mistakes, and I think thats why I made the movie. I was going through a divorce at the time, and I wanted to take all that energy, which was negative energy, and put it somewhere that I could do something positive with it. And I dont always do that in my work, but there are occasions when Ill read a script that happens to be in a parallel existence with my own. The two then go together beautifully, and it becomes almost like a therapy. That happened with The Weather Man. It was a real overlay of my life with the character of Dave Spritz. The search for who we are inside is an ongoing quest, isnt it? It should always keep going, ideally. Yeah, and it will, until we becomewhats the right way of saying this? Until weve overcome it to the point where we can become masters of our own destiny, if such a thing is possible. We become the directors, not the actors? [laughs] Yeah, were no longer at the mercy of the elements, but more in control of them. Ever met anybody like that? No. Have you? Never. [both laugh] Ive always wanted to meet The Dalai Lama. I would imagine hes pretty close to that. Yeah, thats what Ive heard, too. When he walks into a room, you feel a different level of vibration, that hes that guy were talking about. Your background is the stuff of Hollywood lore now: youre the offspring of what has become one of the most prolific artistic families in Hollywood history: the Coppolas. Your father, August Coppola, was a professor of fine arts, right? Yeah, comparative literature. He initially taught at Long Beach State and then became Dean of Creative Arts at San Francisco State. Heres the interesting thing about my father in relation to education: he was pretty frustrated with the educational system, so when I went to him in high school and said, Dad, Im not a good match for this. This isnt me. I want to go to work. I want to act. High school isnt working for me. He actually said, Go ahead and take the (GED) exam, and get out. So what one would expect, that he would insist I go to college, wasnt the case. He encouraged me to follow my dream and go on. But hes also the son of an artist. So he understood that and related to that. Thank you for pointing that out. It has been somewhat confusing to me over the years why he would say thats okay. It was somewhat important to him that I pass the equivalency, which I did do. I passed the GED, but I didnt finish the school year. To set the record straight, I am not a high school dropout, as has been said. I have a diploma. I just wanted to get to work. Your mother is also an artist, right? She was a dancer, a modern dance instructor. She studied at UCLA. I was surrounded by that kind of frequency, of artistic energy, that was always around my family. When Id visit my Uncle Francis, it was everywhere. Its the kind of thing where, its madness. Theres a level of it thats so eccentric and zany, that if youre not careful, it can catch like wildfire and burn you down. But at the same time, thats the very stuff that makes people charismatic and fascinating to watch. The trick is, how do you keep a balance with it and not blow yourself out. __________________

Lady Trueheart

Nicalicious

Status: Offline

Posts: 6722

Date: 12:39 AM, 08/11/11

RE: VENICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCT 2005	Permalink

Part 2 Well, the history of art, and particularly cinema, is littered with the corpses of people who were the architects of their own destruction. In some capacity, whether its drugs, high speed driving, or just bad behavior, yeah. This is the very thing that Im thinking about daily, what were talking about now, and Im trying to think how to express it without sounding like Ive got my head in the clouds. It occurs to me that were on this material plane here and were born into it, into matter, and so because were on this level, it seems like the people who are the most messed up, and have the largest appetites for the material are the ones we find the most charismatic, and the ones we relate to the most, and they sort of take the experience of our lives on Earth and tell the stories. So we go to the theater and we see it, and we say, Yeah, I know what thats like. Ive been there. I know what it feels like to drink myself into oblivion. I know what its like to want to rob a bank, and so on. But no one wants to go watch a movie about a guy like the Dalai Lama. Whos going to want to go watch that for two hours? As beautiful as it is, people seem to gravitate toward those who are on this plane and who are succumbing to the plane. Its called drama for a reason. You know the one word definition of drama, dont you? No. What? Conflict. Yeah, yeah. Its something that Im really contemplating right now. If I became perfect, which I am not [laughs], would anybody want to see my work? But would you want to be perfect? That depends. Its almost like if you want to get to another level, assuming there is another level in the afterlife, Id rather be an eagle than a monkey. But I dont think anybody wants to watch the eagle. I think they want to watch the monkey. Its also comforting, to a certain degree, to watch people who appear to be far more ****ed-up than we are, even though that might not be the case. Most likely, unconsciously, were relating to that pain and that dysfunction far more than we realize. Is that what youre saying? Yeah, that is what Im saying. The most charismatic stars and performances: Al Pacino in Scarface (1983), Jack Nicholson in a number of movies, Robert De Niro in Raging Bull (1980), these are people who are really beleaguered with issues, but you cant take your eyes off of them. Im not saying the actors themselves are beleaguered, but the characters they play are. If you did become perfect, you would almost have to resacrifice yourself into matter to be able to be someone who would be accessible to people. You would have to become Keir Dullea in 2001: you would just have to become light spheres. Exactly! So the artist, to me, is really the one who, in a sense, is a character who is giving [himself] up for the people. From what Ive read, youve always known that you were an artist, and have marched to the beat of your own drummer from the time you were a small child. Yeah, thats right. Did you know you were an actor at that point, or did you just know you were different? I knew I was different. I knew in very abstract ways that I wanted to be an actor. I liked what was happening in a boxwhich was the television setmore than what was happening in my own family living room. I wanted to figure out how to get inside the box. It was mystifying to me, and I thought it was amazing that there were people inside this little box. I vowed in my mind that Id learn how to get inside it. You were also the victim of bullying growing up because you were perceived as being so different. Yeah, those were rough years. But dont you also think that when you dont fit into the norm, it forces you to develop the part of your brain that forces you to create, in order to maintain some kind of stability? Yeah, its a training ground of sorts. Look around, this whole place is a training ground. Theres a million opportunities to not give in, and not have it break your spirit. Instead, you can have it be a stepping stone, depending on how you navigate those waters. Our minds are so sensitive at that age. But I had that moment on the football field where everyone in the school started backing away, and just slamming me with every other name you could think of, and I didnt know why it was happening. Although it turned out it was because I was wearing a t-shirt that had The Incredible Hulk on it. [laughs] And that was it, from then on. You were it. Yeah, I was it. I was the guy with the cooties. But I remember taking a deep breath, and just kind of gliding out of it, and going home and sort of breathing and calming down, and just sort of making a mental note of it, but not letting it become the wildfire that were talking about. Which is what happened at Columbine. Yeah, which is what happened at Columbine. You have to have a place which can funnel the negative energy and turn it into a positive. A lot of these kids dont have that. They have no identity, or that becomes their identity, being an avenging angel, of sorts. If I could have been there, and had been some kind of teacher or something, I would have said, What kind of music do you like? Okay, you like goth music. You like it to be really dark and scary. Well, lets see if we can learn to make it together, to put it all there. People get mad at kids when they draw scary pictures, they think its the sign of some sort of disturbance. Well, actually, its art. He or she is taking a scary image, getting it out of their head, putting it onto a piece of paper, and alleviating the pressure. Theyre doing something good with it. To take that away, or not facilitate or educate that is why, I think, we have these problems. __________________

Lady Trueheart

Nicalicious

Status: Offline

Posts: 6722

Date: 12:39 AM, 08/11/11

RE: VENICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCT 2005	Permalink

Part 3 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. __________________

Tues_manIc

the mystery master

Status: Offline

Posts: 2316

Date: 11:46 AM, 08/11/11

RE: VENICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCT 2005	Permalink

Thank you for the heavenly treat, i honestly can't think of an adj. good enough to describe how i feel.i do hope i can find extra time and peace to read the whole interview many thanks to y'all __________________

Lula Argante

Faery Queen of Cagealot Castle

Status: Offline

Posts: 8403

Date: 1:30 PM, 08/11/11

RE: VENICE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW OCT 2005	Permalink

Wow, thank you for posting this Meg, it is awesome to read it again! and thank you to our friends Mara and Bonnie, a.k.a Dame Ragnelle and White Fay here at the castle! I know they will be feeling our gratitude coming to them! A wonderful interview that spans actoss Nic's career, it reminds me a little of the Inside The Actor's Studio interview! A question,when the interviewer says s/he sees Nics' scenes from Fast Timess At Ridgement High on a tv version, can that be right? Does s/he mean 'Best Of Times'? or am i being slow here? __________________

Page 1 of 1 sorted by

Quick Reply
Please log in to post quick replies.

Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse