Out There with Nicholas Cage

Q: Are you still as mystified with women as you were seven years ago when you told Playboy that you didn't understand them, and that if you were to become one, the first thing you'd do is masturbate?

A: Yeah, but now I think the first thing I would do is have sex.

Q: If you could change one thing about your first sexual experience, what would it be?

A: You want me to talk about my first sexual experience?

Q: I didn't ask you to describe it or how old you were or the size of your dick.

A: What was the question again?

Q: If you could change one thing about your first sexual experience, what would it be?

A: I would have taken more time.

Q: Can you explain the ketchup bottle throwing incident at Canter's, where you smashed the bottle against a wall to impress your date?

A: I was with a girl that I liked who was older and trying to get me to watch movies like The Story of O. I had no concept of that way of having sex and wanted to turn her on. So I said, "If I threw this ketchup bottle against the wall would that turn you on?" She went, "Yeah." So I did it.

Q: And did it work for her?

A: Kind of. Although I was banned from the restaurant for a year. But I've given them a lot of publicity. And I met my wife there, you know. Twice.

Q: The first time was in 1987 when you offered to marry her and she made three demands: J.D. Salinger's autograph, a black orchid and a Bob's Big Boy statue.

A: I don't want to talk about that. She's asked me not to talk any more about us.

Q: OK, but how did you locate Salinger's autograph?

A: At a place on Beverly Boulevard. It was a handwritten letter to a woman.

Q: What did it cost?

A: It was a lot of money, $2,500. A lot of people don't believe it, because they know that J.D. Salinger never signed anything. And then my housekeeper threw it out.

Q: Eight years later when Patricia proposed to you, did that come as a shock?

A: Yeah. I said yes immediately. That's all I'm going to talk about. We have a mutual agreement that we're going to respect the privacy of our marriage--

Q: Do you still feel that the only true happiness you've ever felt is when you've held your five-year-old son, Weston?

A: Yes. Weston's enabled me to feel more happiness in other circumstances as well.

He's really changed my outlook on life.

Q: Drugs can do that too. Do you smoke grass?

A: Very rarely. I used to smoke it a lot more.

Q: Ever done acid or any other hallucinogens?

A: No, no.

Q: You do like a good cigar though, don't you?

A: They're calming. It's a good way to shift gears in the day.

Q: Have you gone to any of the cigar and wine bars that have opened in L.A.?

A: Jim Carrey and I went to George Hamilton's wine bar. He's an interesting one. He was there and had some fun stories. I told him how he was one of my heroes from the time he played Evel Knievel. We had cigars, and very expensive bottles of wine were opened, and Jim and I were going, "This is great, man." At the end of the night we got slapped with an $8,000 bill. It was at that point that George became the fox in the Pinocchio story. He happens to look quite a bit like that fox. I would not want to play cards with George Hamilton.

Q: So Jim Carrey's a friend. Do you have many friends?

A: It's difficult for me to make friends. There aren't too many people that I feel comfortable with right away.

Q: What about Johnny Depp--didn't you help him out when he was just getting started?

A: I met Johnny Depp playing Monopoly. I'd been seeing his ex-girlfriend. At first we didn't like each other, but then we did, and I told him he should be an actor. He said, "No, I can't act." Then he met my agent and the rest is history.

Q: Before we let you go, there was some incident where you supposedly attempted to hijack a plane. What was that all about?

A: That was a bad experience. I got carried away. I didn't think that the P.A. system was connected to the entire airplane, and I said into it that I was the captain and the plane was losing altitude and I wasn't feeling well, so please bear with me. At the end of the flight I was met by the police. I almost got in a lot of trouble, and because of that I'm afraid of getting into an airplane accident whenever I fly.

Q: Does that give you nightmares?

A: No, I don't dream. Or I don't remember my dreams.

Q: You used to suffer from them though.

A: I did, yeah.

Q: And was it your father who told you to think of a white horse coming to your rescue whenever you had a nightmare?

A: Yeah, and it worked.

Q: In 1990 you said that you were still searching for what you wanted to do. Is that search over?

A: I know what I want to do, I'm doing it, but I'm still very much a student of the craft and I think I can go further. I still torment myself. I have a lot of self-doubt.

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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Kurt Russell for the Jan./Feb. issue of Movieline.

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