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Nicolas Cage: "I grew up watching adventure movies. Charles Bronson was a hero, Bruce Lee, Clint Eastwood, and I would fantasize that I was in those movies when I was a boy. Then as I got older I discovered James Dean and De Niro and I wanted to be that kind of an actor, so I tried to find my way."
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Nicolas Cage, one of Hollywood’s leading men sneaked into the Melbourne paddock as a guest of Ferrari. What drew him to make a stop-over in the fast lane? “It is my second race after the Montreal paddock some years ago,” he said. “Many of the characters I have portrayed in my movies where men on the limit, living intense, extraordinary lives. This is what attracts me – that Formula One has that spirit of life on the edge.”
GQ Quote - A jazz actor whose bizarre, inappropriate choices are almost always the best thing in the movie. Says Cage, "I think everything I've experienced has left its imprint on my mind and my soul, and it comes out in the work, whether I want it to or not."
"Billy Roth's story truly spoke to my heart; despite the darkness and intense despair, an unlikely and flawed character is able to find and provide hope to others," [Cage said in a statement]
"I consider cars to be objects of art, and since I can't drive a Picasso, I drive them instead. They symbolize freedom."
'I guess a lot of people have thought of my work as odd and yet they meet me and they say, "Well, this is a normal conversation we're having, why is the work so odd?" In reality, I'm actually downright boring.'
"Hollywood didn't know if I was an actor or a nut or if I was this crazy character I was playing. I had developed an image of being a little bit unusual, different and wild."
To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.
“I welcomed the idea of bad reviews because that would mean I was doing something that challenged the critics. I thought I could change acting, which isn’t really my goal anymore. But at that time I was headstrong.”
As a teen-ager I was more of an anarchist, but now I want people to thrive and be harmonious. - US Weekly. Issue 249.
Passion is very important to me. If you stop enjoying things, you've got to look at it, because it can lead to all kinds of depressing scenarios.
Shock is still fun. I won't ever shut the door on it.
I was always shocked when I went to the doctor's office and they did my X-ray and didn't find that I had eight more ribs than I should have or that my blood was the color green. [on feeling different from friends as a kid]
My father was always getting excited about something. It's genetically inside me somewhere.
It's a family that's loaded with grudges and passion. We come from a long line of robbers and highwaymen in Italy, you know. Killers, even.
Classes were always a bore to me. I wanted to learn things on my own, not by presentations.I was a loudmouth and a clown. It came as a surprise to me, later, that I could be serious and still get attention.
I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.
I cry a lot. My emotions are very close to my surface. I don't want to hold anything in so it it festers and turns into pus - a pustule of emotion that explodes into a festering cesspool of depression.
"The next morning [after winning the Oscar], I'm downtown... walking by the newstand, and it was the first time I'd ever been on the front page of the newspaper, which was...interesting. Then I went to this old coffee shop to have a cup of coffee and some pancakes, and the cooks and chefs come out and clap, and it was a great feeling. Then I got in my car and put my Beatles song on that I play when I'm feeling proud, which is 'Baby You're a Rich Man'. So I'm listening to that in my Lamborghini, and I'm driving to the beach, feeling pretty good, when a cop pulls me over. And I think I'm going to get a ticket, which is what usually happens in that car, but they say, 'We just want to say congratulations.' And it was cool. And I'm walking on the beach, and surfers from, like, hundreds of yards in are going, 'Hey, Nic, congratulations!' And it was just a wild day. For one second, Los Angeles felt like a small town."
One of the first signs of being depressed is that you lose interest in things. That's why I think it is important to stay passionate.
"I've always had a fascination with the bizarre, the surreal, the Grand Guignol, the grotesque. I've always liked imperfections. I never really wanted to sell perfection."
"I've always wanted to do work that's stimulating and exciting on an escapist level, but also to do movies that are a bitmore thoughtful and thought-provoking and poetic."
"I used to have this thing I called my Sunshine Trilogy, and now I'm in my Midnight Trilogy."
We've become so glorified in the movie-star system that it's become this artificial royalty. The truth is that we're circus clowns.
At the time I decided to do action films, people were telling me, 'You're not that type. It's not going to work.' And so obviously that made me think, 'Well, that's not comfortable.'
"When I was six, I wanted to get 'into' the TV set, but I was very shy, and very much an outsider in high school. My real inspiration came when I saw James Dean in East of Eden at 15. I never got over it. I identified with his need to impress his father."
"I never want to get comfortable with what I'm doing. I don't think I can grow if I'm comfortable. So I want to push myself a little bit further." -- Cage on looking for challanges.
"As a kid, I was always trying to find ways to ride my bicycle over trash cans and do the Evil Knievel thing. I think that I've always been drawn to that kind of high action stimulation." -- said Nicholas Cage to Star, Nov. 1, 1999.
"In high school, I almost got expelled because I was always making the kids laugh." Cage told CNN, Aug. 31, 1992.
"I've been allowed to surround myself with creative people even when I'm not acting. I get stimulated by exciting people who are passionate about their crafts, passionate about filmmaking, have ideas and are free thinkers,"
"There's not enough eccentricity in my life now... it's important to keep that eccentric spirit alive, because when that goes, I think the work will go."
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