Nicolas Cage Quotes
Actor, Producer
Every great story seems to begin with a snake.
When I was eight, I would look at the cover of the 'Ghost Rider' comic book in my little home in Long Beach, California, and I couldn't get my head around how something that scary could also be good. To me it was my first philosophical awakening - 'How is this possible, this duality?'
I would like to find a way to embrace what Led Zeppelin did, in filmmaking.
One of the pluses of getting older is you set some limits.
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.
Snakes are sometimes perceived as evil, but they are also perceived as medicine. If you look at an ambulance, there's the two snakes on the side of the ambulance. The caduceus, or the staff of Hermes, there's the two snakes going up it, which means that the venom can also be healing.
Picasso said, 'Art is a lie that tells the truth.' What if you just want to tell the truth and not lie about it?
My father once said, 'If you're in the desert and you're dying of thirst, are you going to drink a glass of blood or are you going to drink a glass of water?' I think what he was trying to say, interesting coming from my blood father, is sometimes there are people in your family that can be toxic.
It may come as a surprise to people, but I'm actually quite boring and normal. What do I do? I read books. I drive my kid to school. I have lunch with my wife. I pick my kid up from school. I go home.
I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.
Mike Myers as Austin Powers makes me laugh - that was genius - and Daffy Duck makes me laugh, but I like odd behavior. I don't like hip dialogue and one-liners and all that sort of cool, sophomoric comedy. It's just not for me.
I don't drink blood, and last time I looked in the mirror, I had a reflection.
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.
I think I jump around more when I'm alone.
I believe that there's a way to question authority with manners, with dignity. There's no reason to be rude about it.
I love all animals. I have a fascination with fish, birds, whales - sentient life - insects, reptiles.
I always see America as really belonging to the Native Americans. Even though I'm American, I still feel like a visitor in my own country.
I'm not a trained actor. I'm someone who is autodidactic and learned on my own.
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.
Mel Blanc is a hero because of what he could do with his voice for all the Looney Tunes, the Warner Brothers cartoons, to be the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig. To me, he's a great actor.
There's a fine line between the Method actor and the schizophrenic.
The movies I cannot go without and that I watch annually are 'A Clockwork Orange,' 'Scarface' and 'Fantasia.'
I've always maintained that I see myself as a student. There's always something to learn and be challenged by and hopefully grow from.
Mel Blanc is a hero because of what he could do with his voice for all the Looney Tunes, the Warner Brothers cartoons, to be the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig.
Film has lost something in the translation to high tech. It's become so super-real. It's with digital this and stereo that, and everything's like a CD.
I use technology for communication, but I don't have a Blackberry or an iPhone. I use an outdated cell phone, but I'm fine with it.
I'll speak for myself, but there's a lot of humor to be found in sarcasm and darkness. You talk to any paramedic, they survive by developing a pretty off-kilter sense of humor.
One of the things that's interesting to me is I find things like caffeine and stunts actually relax me. When they're putting a bit of gel on my arm and lighting me on fire, or when I'm about to go into a high-speed car chase or rev a motorcycle up pretty fast, I find everything else around me slows down.
I think what makes people fascinating is conflict, it's drama, it's the human condition. Nobody wants to watch perfection.
I think the paparazzi might have chased me out of Los Angeles.
I'm not really gadget oriented. I'm not into technology or computers. I'm not good at interfacing with that sort of gear.
I definitely went through my magic phase. I think all little boys do at some point or another - they get fascinated by magic tricks.
When I act, I hear it like music. In my head, I hear the dialogue like music.
Children, to me, are of the utmost importance. They're really the future, aren't they?
Most of my favourite moments in film have been when I've had an opportunity to say something from scratch, something original, whether I jotted down a few lines or it came out in improvisation.
I have a love / hate relationship with the city of New Orleans, which is the strongest kind of relationship.
Actors, their greatest tool, their greatest resource is imagination. You can take things, power objects, you can recruit your dreams, you can access your memories and get there. So the idea is not to act but to just be.
Shock is still fun. I won't ever shut the door on it.
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.
Nobody wants to watch perfection.
There were two movies that asked me to go to Australia or New Zealand for long periods of time. One was 'Lord of the Rings' and one was 'The Matrix.' But I was actively involved at that time raising my family, and I couldn't really take that time out.
I think that 'Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance' was mentally taxing, if only because I had to go to a Christmas party shortly after I had wrapped photography in Romania at two in the morning as the Ghost Rider. The invitation had a Christmas ornament on it with Ghost Rider's face on it as a tree.
I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was very young. I guess I was about 6 years old at the time, and I was fascinated by television. I started having waking fantasies where I was in a movie and there were crane shots of me during a scene.
I'm an enormous admirer of Christopher Lee. He's somebody, along with Vincent Price, who I celebrate, and I wanted my movies to show that celebration and that honoring of these great film stars that were unafraid to go into horror and Grand Guignol and the macabre.
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.
I haven't isolated myself. I am not living on a yacht somewhere. I am not tucked away or behind a gate somewhere. I am not flying on a private plane. I am going to the airport, I am with people, some of the interactions are good, some of them are not so good, but it keeps me in touch with being, you know, part of society.
Sometimes people think I'm wearing a wig when I'm not wearing a wig, and then sometimes they think I'm not wearing a wig when I am wearing a wig.
It's no secret that I've always had an interest in mythology. Whether it's Arthurian or ancient Greek or even Marvel universe. I've always connected with it on some level.
I try to do as many stunts as they'll let me do. I think it's important for an audience to feel that the actor's really doing it.
You can choose your family sometimes. You can choose people, it could be a teacher, it could be a professor, it could be someone you work with that actually genuinely cares about you and wants you to succeed.
I'm at the point now where I know I'm doing something right when a movie gets mixed reviews, because then I'm not in the box. I don't want to make it too easy for people and I don't want to make it too easy for myself. I want to try something unusual.
I don't want you to think that I'm up late reading a stack of Spider-Man comics and eating a tray of lemon cookies while sucking my thumb. I'm not doing that. But I am loyal to the influences of my childhood.
The end of the world is on people's minds. We have the power to destroy or save ourselves, but the question is what do you do with that responsibility.
I like movies where you feel like you're going into another world, and no matter how many times you watch it, you're gonna see something new in that world. That level of detail really inspires me.
How do you rebel in a family of rebels?
I'm very impressed with 'Drive.'
I always say to myself that if I can make a movie that makes a kid smile or gives them some hope or something to get excited about, then I'm applying myself in the best way that I can. I don't think that just goes for kids. I think that it goes for adults, as well, and for families.
I bought a Yamaha-1 and I was doing 180 miles per hour home on the 405 and that's really, really crazy but I did it.
If I could have been a marine biologist I would have, but I didn't have that kind of intelligence. Numbers were never my strong point.
Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some sort of root in the abstract.
We do see Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat, but it's very rare to see the Chinese male actor in Hollywood movies, which is something I take great umbrage with. You know, my son is Asian. He may want to direct one day; he may want to be an actor like his father - and I want that to be open to him.
I try not to be proud. I try to actively attack pride.
I think it's no secret that I've tried to take chances in my career and also in my life, and I believe to not live in fear.
I'm sticking my tongue out in scenes to try to make that work in 3D. I'm thinking I'll try to get my tongue all the way out to the second row of the audience.
I think that if you go about making movies to win Oscars, you're really going about it the wrong way.
I want to always find new ways of reinventing myself.
I'm always curious about what happens when we die. And I'd like to think that somehow the spirit goes on. I'd rather not think that it's just about this.
I've gotten pretty good at leaving characters on the set. I go home and try to relax and regroup and be ready for the next day.
I don't want to sit around by the pool luxuriating with a margarita. That's just not what I want to do.
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.
And what I like about it is it makes me happy and I think it makes a lot of people happy to go to the movies and to not think about the problems of the day or the problems of tomorrow or the yesterday and just go on for the ride and have the fun of losing oneself in a fantasy.
At a young age, I was interested in comic books, which was really how I learnt to read. The name Cage came from a comic book character called Power Man.
You get dinged for wanting to do a comedy, then wanting to do a big-budget action film, and then wanting to do an indie. But you can't let other people trying to label you get in the way of trying to do something artistically.
I loved 'Fantasia' as a kid because it filled me with wonder, enchantment and awe. It was my first real introduction into classical music. It was totally inspiring to me.
I like both Blu-ray and DVD, but Blu-ray gives you more options.
The fact that 'Astro Boy' appealed to me as a boy in America was proof that the story and character transcend cultural stereotypes.
As a teenager I was more of an anarchist, but now I want people to thrive and be harmonious.
Acting is always at the core of my life, but I'm also excited about producing. I'm excited about directing, and I have a life in the filmmaking world, and so I want to explore all aspects of it, not just the acting, but acting is the root.
My father was always getting excited about something. It's genetically inside me somewhere.
I may be alone in this, but I do sense the power of film, in that movies have the ability to literally change people's minds. That's pretty powerful stuff when you consider that.
'Knowing' is one of those movies where you're going to get the spectacle, and you're going to have the entertainment in the grand science fiction tradition. But also, it will perhaps stimulate some discussion to help you sort out on your own where you might choose to go in terms of your own needs. Now, I say that without preaching.
When you start a movie, it's not like other kinds of work that you have when you know your boss for years or colleagues for years. You're meeting everyone, mostly, for the first time. You have to get comfortable with those people so you can perform, because the first thing that is going to shut you down is any kind of anxiety.
There is a misperception, if you will, in critical response or even in Hollywood, that I can only do exaggerated characters. Or what they would call over-the-top performances. Well, this is completely false.
Celebrity is a word I take great umbrage with. I'm actively anti-celebrity.
Often you hear stories about never working with children. I disagree because children still have that residual magical thinking. They haven't had their imagination knocked out of them by turning into adults and life experiences.
I know there's been a lot that's been said about animated voice work, as though it's 'you can do this in your jeans and there's no camera and no pressure there. It's no big deal. It's easy.' The truth is, it's really a great test: how deep is your ability is to access your imagination?
I've always had a soft spot for comic books. I learned to read from them. The words in them were so interesting.
The best characters are the ones that somehow manage to be both attractive and repulsive at the same time. If you do that, you're at the center of the universe - if you can find characters who are more ambiguous and can raise more questions than answers.
I invite the entire spectrum, shall we call it, of feeling. Because that is my greatest resource as a film actor. I need to be able to feel everything, which is why I refuse to go on any kind of medication. Not that I need to! But my point is, I wouldn't even explore that, because it would get in the way of my instrument.
I'm one of those people that feels that Americans that shouldn't do Shakespeare... The rhythms of the English language and the mannerisms of the English speech seems to work effortlessly with William Shakespeare, but when Americans do it, something seems stuck.
I have eclectic tastes in the movies I want to do.
I want to make all kinds of movies. I do want to make big movies that are a lot of fun to go to, but I also want to make movies that are going to stimulate some thought and maybe raise some awareness.
As I got older, with my work, I became aware of the responsibility of film, and I feel one of the best ways I can apply myself as an actor, is to go beyond movie stardom and celebrity.
I would definitely return to Austria. They were all good experiences for me, but definitely Austria because there were some ancient Celtic, sacred sites that were in the forest that were quite beautiful.
I hit the ground running, without a lot of training, so I had to do whatever I could do to survive as a professional, and if that meant being that character 24/7 and acting out, I was going to do that. I lived those characters, I brought them home with me.
My mother was a dancer, so I like to use the body as part of the instrument of acting.
I don't want to just do independent movies and I don't want to just do adventure films. I enjoy both, and I think both are cogent.
I do like to move and get physical in my movies.
Look, I happen to still like really dark, dramatic, fractured characters.
I'm the first to admit that I like going to, or my memories at least of going to Clint Eastwood movies or Charles Bronson or James Bond.