Nicolas Cage – Actor to Internet Meme

Nicolas Cage is no longer human. He’s now something more than a mere mortal, made up of the superhuman cloud of his own pop culture references.

On the one hand, it is the internet, feeding upon his power of his personality, on the other hand, he has become a creature of his own making.

His style of acting, his eventful life and the things he says to journalists are all fodder for a world always looking for the next interesting thing. By always being on the edge of genius, frightening people by his unvarnished take on existence and his craft, he has become more powerful than just a simple actor plying his trade.

It turns any film that he’s in into an event. Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance has become the must-see comic book movie of the year, and for the most part, it’s because people want to see Nic Cage ‘go there’.

Because he ‘went there’ in Wicker Man, when he punched a woman in the face wearing a bear suit. In Ghost Rider, he’ll go there, and punch Satan in the face (want to see that so much).

Bam!

His acting is world class, whatever ‘level’ it is.

Winning an Oscar for ‘Leaving Las Vegas’, he’s worked for everyone, from Michael Bay to Werner Herzog. His on-screen presence is undeniable, no matter how ‘big’ his performance. When he goes to work to promote the film, the results are undeniable.

It’s like pissing fire on a blazing… oh wait, that’s in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

Cage’s work and presence is one of the things that make life worth living – but imagine it was your life.

Having an Action Comics #1 stolen, then found, then sold at auction, for more than $2 million.

Trying out for the role of Superman, for Tim Burton, in one of the oddest pairings of hair and suit in the history of time.

Being the subject of an investigation into the possibility that he might be a vampire, alive since the 1860′s.

In 2009, the IRS alleged that Cage had failed to pay more than $6.2 million in federal income tax for the year 2007. While Cage sued his former business manager for mismanaging his money, his New Orleans, Bel Air and Nevada homes were foreclosed and sold at auction.

Having a tumblr devoted to you at Gifolas Cage.

No matter how bad things get…

This isn’t a movie, this is his life.

No wonder he’s looking for something ‘more’ on screen (not just cash) when he says yes to his next role.

In his recent work promoting Ghost Rider, several fascinating tidbits popped up.

He was offered the role of Scarecrow in the next Schumacher Batman movie.

He almost starred in ‘Dumb and Dumber’ with Jim Carrey, but didn’t – went off to work on a small film called ‘Leaving Las Vegas’.

He was offered a role in The Matrix.

He was offered a role in The Lord of the Rings.

Seriously – those last two – can you imagine?

Nicolas Cage as Morpheus. Nicolas Cage as… Gollum.

The imagination runs wild.

Everything WILL be fine.

But then he went on to describe how working in film isn’t about trying to win Oscars. It seems batshit insane, but when you decipher it, it’s a statement of genius, and a pretty good ‘Cage-in-a-nutshell’ moment, if ever there was one.

“I think that if you go about making movies to win Oscars, you’re really going about it the wrong way. I think that it’s … right now, what I’m excited about is trying to create a [pauses] kind of a cultural understanding through my muse that is part of the zeitgeist that isn’t motivated by vanity or magazine covers or awards. It’s more, not countercultural, but counter-critical. I would like to find a way to embrace what Led Zeppelin did, in filmmaking.”

Yeah.

Putting this into context – Led Zeppelin weren’t about promoting themselves, but retaining an air of mystery. The work speaks for itself.

Certainly some of what Cage does may be unfathomable to the uninitiated, but for the rest of us, it’s a clear sign that Cage is an artist, above all else.

He takes his acting seriously. Really seriously. He blacked out his eyes and sewed Egyptian artefacts into his clothes to get into the ‘spirit’ of Ghost Rider. He described the process as “nouveau-shamanic”.

But then he also used his own life experience for the role, which is saying something when you’re playing a soul-sucking demon from Hell.

“At one point, I had a couple of cobras but the neighbours didn’t like them so I gave them to a zoo. But I would study how these cobras move back and forth in a rhythmic motion. So I thought, why doesn’t Ghost Rider move like that, with a sort of hypnotic, rhythmic motion?”

“Today you’re called psychotic if you do that, but it’s all semantics,” said Cage.

An actor must always trust his director. Cage is on record saying that he would still love to work with Tim Burton.

The fate of a movie at the box office (or critically) doesn’t compete with his faith in his characters, or the story-making process. For example, the infamous Wicker Man is something that he might possibly return to:

“I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made ‘Ringu,’ and take ‘The WickerMan’ to Japan,” said the actor. “Except this time he’s a ghost.”

Yes, you would actually watch that, wouldn’t you?

It’s the kind of commitment that can end in trouble. Things didn’t get out of hand on set of Ghost Rider, but..

“I could see the fear in the eyes of the crew, and that was oxygen to my forest fire. The problem was leaving all that behind when I went home. When you’ve been playing Ghost Rider until 3 in the morning, and then you get invited to a Christmas party in Romania and you throw in a couple of gin martinis … all hell can break loose. And it did.”

“I am lucky I’m not in a Romanian prison.”

Probably the best quote that has come out of his press interactions for Spirit is the irony of riding motorcycles.

“I’m legally unable to ride motorcycles – it’s a contract I have with my life insurance. So if I get a chance to do a movie and ride a bike, I go for it.”

If you think that Cage is just a crazy man channeling his inner demons on screen for ready cash, think again. Whilst the internet has taken his performances, his hair, his statements and turned them into ‘check this out’ fodder, the true person behind it all is something else.

Here’s what he had to say about his work with David Lynch on ‘Wild at Heart’:

“That was my first attempt at what I call a Warhol-esque approach to acting. In Stanislavski’s ‘An Actor Prepares,’ he says you are not allowed to imitate. But rules are made to be broken, so I tried to challenge that. I believe in art synthesis. Warhol used to do that. He would take (Mick) Jagger or (Elvis) Presley and use them in his paintings. So I decided to take Presley and embody his aura while playing Sailor Ripley. It was an overlay of performance over performance.”

That shit is deep. So is the man. As an internet meme, he’s superb, but as an actor, he deserves any and all credit that he gets. His fearlessness is what sets him apart, an easy target, but it’s also that thing that makes him something special on screen. Either you can take him straight up, or with tongue in cheek, but whether it’s on the internet, or on screen, Nicolas Cage is worth watching.

The finest moments of Nic Cage glory. Drink it in.