The Good Times of Nicolas Cage

Q: In the end, what do you think of the film?

A: It works incredibly well. It's one of Brian's best movies, if not his best. I'm not given to hyperbole, so I mean it when I say that.

Q: How was it working with De Palma?

A: He's very intuitive and insightful with actors. He doesn't say much, but he knows what he wants. He lets the actors find it without micromanaging. A lot of young directors tend to get in there and micromanage a performance, which comes from an insecure place. Brian's a secure filmmaker. Once he said to me, "We got that, let's go to lunch." When we came back he wanted to do the scene again. I hadn't had time to think about it, but it felt much better, like I could hit it out of the park. I asked if that was intentional and he said, "Yeah." That's a man with almost a Zen way of directing.

Q: You just played an angel in City of Angels. Was it tougher to play an angel or a corrupt cop?

A: I put pressure on myself with City of Angels. I wanted to create a subliminal essence where you're not really sure why it's different or other, but it is. For example, I didn't want to blink. That was very hard to do and occasionally I did blink.

Q: Were you at all concerned about remaking Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire with City of Angels?

A: They're very different. Wim's movie had to do with what was going on in the minds of people in Berlin after the war. His movie is a unique masterpiece on its own. Ours borrowed the notion of angels amongst us and the style and look of the angels and their ability to read and hear thoughts. But that's as far as it went. Our love story was played up much more.

Q: The last time we talked you hadn't yet won the Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas. What was that night like for you?

A: I was a nervous wreck. I thought about taking something but I was afraid it might affect my timing, because I had to present as well. I had gone through this unusual series of festivals and award shows that had been a paper trail all the way up to the Oscar and people would say, "Why are you worried? Of course you're going to win, you've won everything else." But I did not know I was going to win. I'm very obsessive/compulsive, so things will stay on a loop with me. I'll keep saying, "But what if this happens?" and work myself into a state that is a force of nature. People around me have learned to deal with it. That night I was certain I was not going to win. So when it happened I was very relieved. I felt I could breathe. A friend of mine said, "Be sure that you watch what's happening to you and accept it and feel good about it." Which was good advice. So when I got up there I took a deep breath and thought, Wow, this may never happen again, so I'm gonna enjoy this.

Q: What did the note your wife wrote to you mean--"It was a win for every married couple and a celebration of marriage"?

A: To me it was just a beautiful note that meant that she loved me. Also, she gave me a kiss and her lipstick was on my face when I went up there.

Q: Did she wind up with a diamond necklace as part of that celebration?

A: I had bonuses built into my contracts that if I won I would get a certain amount of dollars. And it just so happened that the bonus they gave me for Face/Off was the exact amount of the diamonds that she was renting from Harry Winston. So I said, If I win, you're taking something home as well. I won and she's got the diamonds.

Q: You said you did Leaving Las Vegas for you, as something to be proud of. What do you say about the next three movies you did--_The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off_? Were they done for your bank account?

A: I'm proud of all those movies. I had specific reasons for doing them. I had a great experience on The Rock working with Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay and Sean Connery. Jerry especially said, "I think you can be in an action movie." I had been wanting to do them--I was weaned on James Bond and Steve McQueen movies--but there was nothing in my previous work to suggest that I could be convincing in that world. After doing The Rock, Con Air was natural for me. Jerry was involved and I wasn't going to say no to him, he did a lot for me. I've done some of my more original stuff in those films. It was a huge challenge for me. I watched all of Harrison Ford's movies and learned from him.

Q: What did you learn from Ford?

A: That you can create a character, like in The Fugitive, who's overwhelmed with emotion, or you can play a character who's a little insecure in a giant action situation and then rise to the occasion. People laugh at me and say that I didn't work as hard on Con Air as I did on Leaving Las Vegas. The truth is they're just very different. I had to find ways to be convincing in an action film. Action only gives you a certain amount of time to convey a point as an actor, so it teaches you to be succinct. That was a learning experience--finding exactly what's required for the character in each moment. The other thing I like about action is that it's pure cinema, an experience you can only get from the movies. In the end I want to try all kinds of movies. I tend to do things in threes, and for some reason I had three action movies that came along at that time.

Q: How do you make the studios happy with these big-budget films and still remain true to yourself?

A: Face/Off is the best example of that. I felt really proud of it because I was able to go back to what I had learned on Vampire's Kiss, which was sort of my experimental laboratory where I tried things out, facial expressions and attitudes. I was able to utilize that kind of acting in some of the scenes in Face/Off. [Director John] Woo just let me go for it.

Q: Did Travolta raise the bar on how you perceived this film?

A: John's a great actor and mimic. He can mime anybody. He really had me down. His delivery is more subtle than my personality, so for me it was much harder to get in synch with his vocal rhythms. I had a joy of a time working with John. I felt a kindred spirit with him, a sense of play and fun that's important to making a performance exciting.

Q: Travolta said he watched the way you walked and talked to get you down. What did you do about him?

A: He has a vocal rhythm where it's kind of like an endearing little boy, you can almost see "Don't hurt me" in quotations. And he has an innate politeness.

Q: Did you see _Face/Off _as a comedy?

A: I saw elements of it being very funny, but I also saw it as a sci-fi horror film.

Pages: 1 2 3 4