Nicolas Cage: The 60 Minutes Interview

it's no secret big Hollywood Studios like a sure bet and there's no shortage of predictable movies to prove it which is probably why Nicholas Cage left Los Angeles for Las Vegas a long time ago at 59 the Academy Award winner owns one of the most eclectic lists of film credits in the business he's been added for more than 40 years pivoting from leading Man to action hero to a slew of lesser features and Back Again but we learned behind that Kaleidoscope of characters is a unique imagination and an encyclopedic knowledge of film that seems to motivate everything Nicholas Cage does his work his life and even this the story will continue in a moment we always love that character Cage's brand new gold Lamborghini a tribute to a beloved 1968 film directed by Federico Fellini featuring this gilded Ferrari it was a crazy beautiful Fellini movie and it inspired me so when I saw this I said that's the car it's not a Ferrari which would be great but they don't really have any gold for ours have you driven this out here beyond the gates oh yeah yeah wow [Music] that's fun snap crackle pop right by any measure Nicholas Cage is not slowing down he's revamping the role of Dracula in a movie out now called Renfield please come in and has another five movies coming up we met Nicholas Cage at the home he shares with his wife and young daughter in Las Vegas it is exactly what you might imagine Nicholas Cage's home in Las Vegas would be part goth Cathedral part avant-garde Gallery okay there's an African crow in the living room a cat that could scare off a burglar and this this is my black dragon that's a monitor lizard he'll get to be about six feet long he's like having a real dinosaur in her house it's kind of amazing and he's alive that kind of imagination is in his DNA Nicholas Kim Coppola was born on The Fringe of Cinema royalty his uncle is director Francis Ford Coppola he told us his mother Joy a choreographer suffered from severe mental illness and was institutionalized for much of his childhood he and his two brothers were raised by his father August a literature Professor who introduced him to the Masterworks of Italian and German filmmakers igniting his love of Cinema as a teenager he worked at a movie theater and says he was mesmerized by the big screen was it about being a movie star or was it about escaping into something else it was about wanting to be James Dean and Rebel Without a Cause And wearing that red jacket wanting to be John in Saturday Night Fever I came out of the cinema electrified I was like yeah wanting to go there purchasing agency and after seeing James Dean in East of Eden he did it was more meaningful to me than anything else I'd experienced music you know Beethoven Beatles painting what I saw in that moment made me realize the the power the excitement of what you can convey through film performance film performance he's been in pursuit of that feeling for most of his life inhabiting characters of every stripe a baby snatching ex-con I've been taking these Huggies and uh whatever cash you got a Brooklyn Baker an alcoholic screenwriter you have a cell phone I could borrow a treasure hunter and even himself in a cage Cage's first feature role came in 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High the 17 year old Blends into the background but is Coppola name did not his uncle directed The Godfather and Apocalypse Now sick of being hazed about it on set he changed his name inspired by a Marvel superhero with unbreakable skin when people think of Nicholas Cage I wanted it to have like a punk rock energy at that time I wanted to be unpredictable you don't know what you're going to get I wanted to be exciting and a little scary it has been after more than 100 movies Nicholas Cage is almost his own genre he told us when he read the script for Peggy Sue got married he worried it was going to be too much like the play our town how did you know about that which he hated I grew up watching Gumby and listening to Pokey and I thought well that would be a good voice for a character especially in this movie thank you for saving me and so I thought if I do that that won't be boring that'll be like what the hell is he doing things just work out better in the end and Kathleen Turner said like what the hell is he doing I think I frustrated her with the the performance but I had to order did she ever say like knock it off oh yeah but cage would draw from odd places again in the Coen Brothers Raising Arizona how did you envision that role h.i McDonough was like that thrush muffler symbol the Woody Woodpecker with the cigar I saw him with like the red hair sticking up like a Looney Tunes uh character come to life again I want to ask you about one scene in that movie you're having a mug shot taken and you turn and as you're walking away you slap your ass let me know how those come out I had it all thought out giddy up you know like getting himself up out of the mug shot he just catalog of inspiration extends from cartoons to The Haunting German films he watched as a child you've been influenced by German expressionists what does that look like well what it is is specifically movies like cabin of Dr Caligari or Nosferatu or Metropolis the mad scientist shows the robot hand and he goes like that you know it's just like a large expressionistic acting so I put that into Moonstruck I lost my hand that's exactly a direct steal I lost my hand I lost my bride Johnny has his hand Johnny has his bride you want me to take my heartbreak put it away and forget it come on 35 years on Ronnie camereri the operatic one-handed Baker in the romantic comedy Moonstruck remains one of his most memorable roles you can do this one thing for me but cage says it was a small movie called Leaving Las Vegas that was the answer to his prayers what did you think when you first read that script that was the feeling that I had with East of Eden and James deems like this is the kind of movie I really want to make heartbreaking drama about two wounded people who somehow have this true love how did you figure out how to play that role well I looked at a lot of great movies I looked at Kris Kristofferson and A Star is Born it's from him I got that feeling of he was always smiling in my view the only thing sadder than a person who's in a sad situation and knows it is a person who's in a sad situation and doesn't know it you're like some kind of antidote mixes with the liquor and keeps me in balance but that won't last forever I was saying to myself literally I'm never going to win the Academy Award so let's just do this anyway because nobody wanted to make it at the Oscars you announced on stage you love the idea of blurring the line between art and commerce by making this small film and then you start doing these big action films yeah that was about staying unpredictable and trying something new again but at the time when I did it I think it pissed a lot of people off you know it was like well that's you're an actors actor you're not supposed to be doing adventure films you will not but he did the rock with Sean Connery a prison break movie Con Air put the bunny back in the Box the National Treasure franchise and Face-Off where Cage's character literally swaps faces with John Travolta I've got something in common an absurd idea that delivered big box office returns and helped catapult cage into the category of Hollywood's highest paid actors where's your head at when that starts happening oh great now I can make another Leaving Las Vegas let's keep doing it let's keep mixing it up let's keep challenging ourselves but cage ended up facing a different kind of challenge we wanted to ask him about reports that he blew through his fortune buying cars Mansions around the globe even a dinosaur skull but as African Crow hugin objected to the line of questioning hi Hogan right on cue nice to hear you're talking again I know everybody in the house kind of freaked you out the houses right castles in Germany in England and Ireland a mansion in New Orleans right what's that about I was over invested in real estate it wasn't because I spent 80 on an octopus the real estate market crashed and I couldn't get out in time how much money did you end up owing to the IRS into your credit I paid them all back but it was about 6 million I never filed for bankruptcy he moved to tax-free Las Vegas dug in and worked non-stop making three to four movies a year that had to be a dark period it was dark sure did the work help you work work was always my guardian angel it may not have been Blue Chip but it would still work when somebody suggests during that period of time when they say these critics say like ah he's just here for a paycheck and he's phoning it in even if the movie ultimately is crummy they know I'm not phoning it in that I care every time but there are those folks that are probably thinking that the only good acting that I can do is the acting that I chose to do by Design which was more operatic and you know Larger than Life and so-called cage rage and all that but you're not going to get that every time but part of the appeal is the cage rage a moniker his fans have for his outside some say over-the-top moments on Films I'm trying to help you and you won't listen you go for it I've heard you've described it as like going for the Triple Axel every time and sometimes you land it and sometimes you don't well not every time but there are things that I do want to go for sometimes that I have a vision for and I and I do like his 2021 performance as a heartbroken Chef in the movie Pig none of it is real the critics aren't real the customers aren't real because this isn't real when I'm played Rob and pig I felt I entered the room I felt that I was closer to me than maybe I've ever been before in film performance she died what do you mean closer to you that I wasn't acting I felt that I was doing exactly what I care about I think it's probably my best movie and I think I'll put that up against Leaving Las Vegas or anything else that would include his turn as Dracula in his latest movie Renfield cage met us at a favorite hangout on the Strip to talk about the count we have much to discuss Dracula is daunting I am counting because it's a legacy it's my servant Dracula is a character that has been done well many times he's also a character that has been done poorly many times but for me I think Christopher Lee he was my Dracula he made Dracula scary you know we had a happy marriage in terms of I could bring where I wanted to go like into the camera with the teeth almost like the shark and Jaws like you seem like a guy who's all in all the time you don't do anything halfway very insightful Sharon very very insightful let's eat

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 1,330,932

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Nicolas Cage

Id: QqrhKjrgFrk

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023