How Nicolas Cage stays creative: a 7.30 bedtime and no whiskey
The actor talks about the power of abstinence, Coppola family reunions and his new serial-killer film, Longlegs.
Nicolas Cage has a lot of mouths to feed in the morning. First he brings his 18-month-old daughter a bottle of milk. Then his cat, Merlin, gets two cans of his favourite food.
“It just so happens that my crow Huginn’s favourite food is the same as Merlin’s, so I’ll go over to his environment and he’ll take it from my hand. I’ll give him a little pet behind the feathers on his neck,” the Oscar-winning actor, 60, says. “Then my wife and I feed the dogs together.”
He tends to his two parakeets and sprinkles food into the fishbowl. When it’s his turn to eat, Cage makes himself two cans of lentils with pesto sauce. “I don’t want to eat spaghetti or carbs, so that’s my breakfast,” he says.
As Hollywood resumes go, Cage’s is eclectic: He has played Dracula, an angel and even a heightened version of himself, among other memorably weird characters. This month, he’ll appear on screens as the titular serial killer in Osgood Perkins’s Longlegs.
Cage has gone to extreme lengths for past roles, keeping his head wrapped in bandages for Birdy and videotaping himself while blackout drunk to prepare for Leaving Las Vegas. Getting into character for Longlegs was different, more personal; he says he based the role, in part, on his own mother.
Cage lives in Las Vegas with his wife, Riko Cage, and their daughter, August Francesca Coppola Cage. Here, he talks about meditating in the shower, his favourite place to see a movie and what he learned from David Bowie.
What time do you get up on Mondays, and what’s the first thing you do after waking up?
It can be anywhere from 2 to 5am, and it oscillates quite a bit. The first thing I do is see to my daughter. After I know she’s comfortable and back to sleep, I get on the elliptical and do about five miles, then maybe some weights.
With that early wake-up, what time are you going to bed?
We start winding down around 7.30pm, so I’m usually knocked out at 8.
Are you a coffee drinker?
I drink coffee. I love caffeine. I do think that I overdo it. I get two strawberry flavoured zero-sugar C4 energy drinks. Each has about 200mg of caffeine.
Do you meditate or journal? Are there other ways you find space to reflect?
The meditation usually takes place in the shower. I will just go through some sort of little mantra, if you will, or some phraseology that I repeat to start my day. That’s nothing I want to divulge in here, but they’re positive words to live by.
Do you have a skincare routine?
I do absolutely nothing. I should because I live in the Mojave Desert, which is in fact the hottest desert in the world. It’s not the Sahara. It’s the Mojave. We have temperatures out here sometimes at 132, 134 (56C) in Death Valley. In the shower, I wash my face and sometimes I’ll use witch hazel on my skin. But I don’t have moisturisers or anything like that.
You’ve acted in so many different genres. What’s the decision-making process like when you’re considering a new project?
Am I going to grow in some way from this experience? Is there something here I haven’t done before? Does it make me uncomfortable in some way? I asked Bowie, “How did you keep reinventing yourself?” He said, “I just never got comfortable with anything I was doing.”
How has your acting philosophy changed over four decades in the business?
In the beginning I was trying to make a big noise and be punk rock. With David Lynch, I was trying to do what Andy Warhol did by taking a giant icon – in this case, Elvis – and try to do that with film performance. I wanted to just break out of a 1970s naturalism that everyone became obsessed with. Now I’m getting to a place of quietude and gentleness, like a haiku. So, where do I go from here? I don’t know. Do I try television? I’ve never done that. That’s scary. Do I try Broadway?
Is your Longlegs character based on any real-life serial killers?
It was so important to me that this be unlike any other serial killer you’ve ever seen. Oz’s (Osgood Perkins) dad created the most iconic serial killer in Norman Bates, and I wanted to do something that was a complete departure. The biggest inspiration was my mum. What’s interesting is that Oz, when I first met him, said this is a movie about his mother. That’s not something you expect to hear when someone’s pitching you a horror film.
I see this character in some ways as my mum, not that she was satanic, but she was touched with a very hard life and mental illness. Growing up around that was equally fascinating and terrifying. So her voice came back to me, the way she would talk to me, and I put all that into this character. It was cathartic.
What line gets quoted to you most often by fans?
For the longest time it was “Snap out of it” from Moonstruck. “Son, you got a panty on your head” from Raising Arizona. “I’m a prickly pear” from Leaving Las Vegas.
Are there things you do to cultivate your creativity and imagination?
I don’t know why I’m thinking of this, but it’s interesting living in Las Vegas. I’ve been here for 14 years, off and on for 17. You think about monks like Thomas Merton who’s in a Trappist monastery and he’s meditating all day, every day, and of course he’s writing brilliantly. But to me, if you really want to spiritually ascend, put yourself in the middle of Sin City and say no. Say no to that whiskey on the rocks, say no to that strip club, say no to that casino. Just be completely dry with everything. I mean everything: intimacy, everything. See what that’s like.
Where is your favourite place to see a movie?
I go right down the street to the Cinebarre on Sahara. I go there and I get a big box of popcorn and I just start watching movies. I did that with Oppenheimer and I did that with Barbie. I don’t mind going out. I don’t have security. I don’t go out if I don’t think I can meet people. I know what it’s like to meet someone you care about or think you know and have them completely take the wind out of your sails. I don’t want to do that to anybody else.
What’s a piece of advice you’ve gotten that’s guided you?
“Did you like where you were? And did you like the people you were working with?” – Martin Sheen. He said that to me so long ago, it was before Charlie and I really hit it off, and I was over visiting the house. We were working with Chris Penn on Rumble Fish. The three of us were watching Deliverance, believe it or not, and then Martin walked into the room. He went, “Oh, that’s a horrible scene.” The scene with Ned Beatty, the famous scene.
Martin said, “If you’re going to do this, if you’re going to get in this business, all that matters is: Did you like where you were, and did you like the people you were working with?” I wasn’t going to argue with him, but in my head I was like, “That’s not what matters, what matters is the movie grade, the work grade.” But as I’ve thought about it on this path, Martin Sheen was right.
You’re a nephew of Francis Ford Coppola. Does what may be Hollywood’s most famous dynasty ever do reunions?
I did see everyone during Easter, and it’s always very friendly and loving. But it doesn’t happen often because people are so busy doing their own thing.
What have you been reading and watching lately?
I finished Hermann Hesse’s Magister Ludi about two months ago. It’s very difficult to read when you have a less-than-two-year-old. In terms of movies, I was just starting to get through Alex Garland’s Civil War. I think all of his movies are very compelling.
The Wall Street Journal
This weekend in Review, Stephen Romei critically assesses Longlegs.
