If you were to ask a number of people the one word they would use to describe Nicolas Cage you would doubtless get a wide range of answers. Eccentric, crazy, rubbish, brilliant, hilarious, ridiculous, so on and so forth but almost one word you would never hear used would be ‘boring’.
Love him or loathe him there is no denying the impact Nicolas Cage has had on popular culture. Everywhere you turn there are social media pages, memes, gifs, vines all dedicated to him and all for various different reasons. Some hailing him as one of the greatest and most diverse actors around, others treating him as nothing more than a joke.
So what it is that has turned Nicolas Cage into this figure? His distinctive look, his wacky voice and his inconsistent fashion sense make him stand out like a sore thumb in today’s film industry. Despite somewhat ironically coming from one of cinema’s most distinguished families, the Coppolas, Cage defies all form of convention when it comes to the classic Hollywood leading man.
[pull_quote_right]The beautiful thing about Nicolas Cage is that you never really know what you are going to get from him. [/pull_quote_right]But as the late, great Roger Ebert once said, when talking about the greatest actors of all time Cage’s name is never considered, but why? “He’s daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air”
It is this caution to the wind approach that has made him one of the most treasured actors around. From his early years as a critical darling in films such as Raising Arizona and Leaving Las Vegas to his latter day cult status working in flops like The Wicker Man and Ghost Rider Cage has always carried a refreshing manic approach largely absent from other Hollywood stars.
Breaking down his career, it is difficult not to wonder about some of the decisions that he has made. His early work saw him win an Academy Award for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas whilst his now infamous turn in The Wicker Man remake saw him pick up a Razzie.
But the beautiful thing about Nicolas Cage is that you never really know what you are going to get from him. Perhaps his most under rated performance was in his work with Bad Lieutenant where he joined forces with fellow eccentric Werner Herzog. The two managed to collide perfectly and give us a glorious dose of controlled insanity.
He is one of the rarest things in today’s celebrity driven culture – an enigma. Cage is unpredictable, a ticking time bomb that can explode at any minute. To quote On The Road Nicolas Cage is, ‘One of the mad ones.’
It is this madness which makes him such a joy to watch on-screen, whether he is taking on a serious role, seen recently in the hugely under-rated ‘Joe’, or one of his wackier roles (Face/Off – looking at you) there is no doubting Cage’s commitment. Those who claim he is nothing more than a sell out only need to watch the conviction with which he delivers his lines; no-one else could have taken The Wicker Man script as seriously as Cage did. It is the sole reason the film remains a weirdly enjoyable experience.
The only thing perhaps more colourful than Cage’s film career is his personal life. Cage’s off-screen persona is in many ways stranger than fiction. In his time he has battled Leonardo Di Caprio over the head of a dinosaur, bought and then been forced to sell a medieval castle, been married and divorced in the space of three months, and, perhaps most famously, named his son Kal-El, after Superman.
A Nicolas Cage film is something to keep an eye out for, regardless if his previous film was a masterpiece or a complete disaster there is a magnetism about Nicolas Cage, a constant want for more. He continues to jump genre, change his tone and push his limits as an actor. Whether an eventual success or failure there is no doubt that he will throw himself fully into every new performance and as an audience we have grown to love him for it.
Cage fails to fit into any category, he lacks the looks of someone like Ryan Gosling or Johnny Depp, he lacks the box office power of Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. He has never achieved the critical success of the likes of Daniel Day Lewis but is that indefinable nature that makes him perhaps the most unique and captivating talent in Hollywood today.
His latest film, Dying of the Light – from Executive Producer Nicolas Winding Refn and directed by Paul Schrader, is out on DVD and Blu-ray from Monday the 2nd of March.
Win your copy here.
Evan Lake (Nicolas Cage – On Frozen Ground, Face/Off) is a desk-bound Langley CIA agent, forced into retirement by signs of early onset dementia.
At the same time he discovers that his former nemesis, Jihadist Muhhamed Banir (Alexander Karim – Zero Dark Thirty, TV’s Tyrant), is not dead as has been assumed for the last two decades, but is alive and receiving experimental medical treatment.
Banir’s exact location is unknown but with the help of a disgraced young agent (Anton Yelchin – Odd Thomas, Star Trek), Evan sets out to track down and confront him before it is too late for both of them.
A supremely classy cast is rounded out by French cinema icon Irene Jacob (Othello, The Inner Life Of Martin Frost).
