How would you feel if one of the biggest names in Hollywood wasn’t actually their real name?
Pretty shocked I’d bet. Well, hold on to your hats because Nicolas Cage isn’t Nicolas Cage.
It’s hard to imagine him with any other name, however, like numerous other aspiring actors, Cage decided to change his name when entering the industry – and for a good reason too.
The Longlegs star – who was born as Nicolas Kim Coppola – explained in an interview with Wired in 2023 that while he was working on the teenage comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982, he was subjected to annoying comments because of his given name.
And even if you are big film buff or a causal cinema-goer, then the name Coppola will no doubt be ringing a few bells.
Nicolas Cage’s name isn’t actually Nicolas Cage (Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)
Cage is the son of August Coppola and Joy Vogelsang and is the nephew of famous filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola – who most famously directed The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker’s Dracula – to name a few.
So fair to say, the actor’s cast mates had a blast making jokes at his expense.
He said that while he was on set, people would joke that they ‘love the smell of Nicolas in the morning’, in reference to Apocalypse Now.
“It made it hard to work and I said ‘I don’t need this’.” he said.
So he took it upon himself to switch out his name for Cage, which was inspired by the Marvel comic book character Luke Cage and John Cage, a ‘avant garde’ composer.
However, people online loved his choice, with one calling him a ‘legend’.
While another said: “Nicolas Cage changing his name to Nicolas Cage is the most Nicolas Cage thing ever.”
A third responded: “As a nerd art major the fact that he not only knows who John Cage is but named himself after him and Power Man made my stupid little heart so happy.”
And a fourth said: “He refused to ride on the coattails of Francis Ford Coppola and let his talent speak for itself. What a lad.”
The Face/Off star went on to elaborate about his name change in an 2014 interview with The Talks: “I had to reinvent myself. I am still legally Nicolas Coppola, but I am Nicolas Cage. I love my family and all of their accomplishments, but as a young actor going into casting offices, I couldn’t get that off of me.
“I had to focus on the character and the audition, and there was pressure because of my name.
“As soon as I went into the casting office under a new name and they didn’t know that there was a connection and I got the part, I was like, ‘I can really do this.’
“I felt liberated. It gave me the freedom to become what I wanted to be in my dreams.”
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Nicolas Cage slams artificial intelligence in the film industry, calling it ‘evil’.
During an interview with Yahoo! Entertainment, the iconic actor spoke of his appearance in The Flash.
The actor revealed that the final product looked nothing like what he had filmed, prompting a discussion around the ‘misappropriation’ of Tim Burton’s Bruce Wayne in the superhero flick alongside controversial actor Ezra Miller.
“I know Tim [Burton[ is upset about AI, as I am. It was CGI, OK, so that they could de-age me, and I’m fighting a spider. I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what happened there. … But I get where Tim’s coming from,” he said.
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“I know what he means. I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art … and appropriating them. I get it. I mean, I’m with him in that regard.”
He then proceeded to call the use of AI in movies ‘inhumane’.
“AI is a nightmare to me,” Cage said.
“It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence … I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art … and appropriating [it].”
Earlier this year, when the SAG-AFTRA strike kicked off in July, union members said they had dismissed the offer tabled by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to use AI to replicate the likeness of background actors.
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SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said the technology would be ‘groundbreaking’ but not in a good way.
“They proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan – their image, their likeness – and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity in any project they want, with no consent and no compensation,” he said, according to the outlet.
While the strike ended on September 27, according to the union, they still need to resolve issues regarding AI and digital recreation by Hollywood studios.
Reuters reported last week that the union presented a proposal over the use of AI to AMPTP, which they are currently reviewing.
SAG-AFTRA said they met with the AMPTP ‘for more than three hours this afternoon and evening to present and review our revised proposal’.
“We continue to await the AMPTP’s response to our comprehensive counter proposal package which we gave them on Saturday, addressing outstanding issues,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement, as per the outlet.
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In a moment which will leave his fans despairing, Nicolas Cage has said that he only has ‘three or four’ more movies left in him.
The movie star is known for taking on an enormous number of roles over his career.
In fact, one estimate puts the number of films that Cage has been in as at least 119 movies. And that’s not counting upcoming ones either.
But the Con Air, Face/Off, and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin star has now said that he may not have many more films left.
Speaking to UPROXX, he said: “I like to keep mixing it up. I don’t want to get stuck in any genre or any performance style. I want to do it all.
“And I feel that I’ve, at this point – after 45 years of doing this; that in over 100 movies – I feel I’ve pretty much said what I’ve had to say with cinema.”
But fans of Cage need not worry too much.
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While the star alluded that while he has plans to step back from the big screen, he has no intention of retiring from acting altogether.
Cage said: “I’d like to leave on a high note and say, ‘Adios’. I think I have to do maybe three or four more movies before I can get there, and then hopefully switch formats and go into some other way of expressing my acting.”
There are certainly plenty of opportunities to explore that at the moment, with multiple streaming platforms putting out all manner of new shows.
And television will certainly be a new venture altogether for Cage. Despite having more than 100 movie roles, his TV filmography is much smaller.
“I would’ve liked to have left on a high note, like Dream Scenario,” he added.
“But I have other contracts that I have to fulfil, so we’ll see what happens.
“I mean, I am going to be very severe and very astringent on the selection process moving forward.”
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Cage went on to talk about the different ways of performing in television, which can allow for a far more slow burning approach than a movie.
He said: “I have seen things that can be done now with characters and the time they’re given to express themselves. I saw Bryan Cranston stare at a suitcase for an hour on one episode of Breaking Bad.
“We don’t have time to do that in a feature film, so maybe television is the next best step for me. We’ll see.”
Featured Image Credit: Paramount
Nicolas Cage has a surprising reason for why he believes things have worked out with his fifth wife Riko Shibata, who he married back in 2021.
The rich and famous can often have a somewhat tumultuous love life, but Nicolas Cage is one more marriage away from reaching Henry VIII levels with it comes to having a plethora of former partners, only without the whole ‘beheading two wives’ thing.
Cage first married Patricia Arquette in 1995 before they separated in 2001, and a year later he tied the knot with Lisa Marie Presley before they filed for divorce little over 100 days later, officially separating in 2004.
Later in 2004, the Face-Off star then married third wife Alice Kim, and they had son Kal-El a year later, before divorcing in 2016.
And in 2019, Cage tied the knot with Erika Koike in Las Vegas, but filed for an annulment four days later as he said he was ‘too drunk’ to be married.
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The 59-year-old then met Riko Shibata, 27, in 2020, having been introduced to her in her native Japan through friends and proposing marriage over FaceTime later that same year.
Speaking to ET, Cage explained the surprising reason he had for thinking that things would work out with Shibata and it was the thing that initially drew them together in the first place.
He said: “We met in Japan and I thought she was stunning when I met her. We had a lot in common.
“She likes animals, too, so I asked her, ‘Do you have any pets?’ And she said, ‘Yes, I have flying squirrels.’ She had two sugar gliders, I thought, ‘That’s it. This could work out’.”
Riko may be his fifth wife but Cage reckons he ‘got it right this time’, telling the Los Angeles Times that ‘five is a lot’ when it comes to wives, but he’s confident this one will work out.
Cage and Shibata were recently pictured together on the red carpet for the premiere of his recent movie Renfield, where the actor plays infamous vampire Count Dracula.
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Movie director Chris McKay recently revealed that Cage was so dedicated to the role that he did his utmost to stay in character as Dracula between takes.
That might have been a bit tricky as the actor explained he ‘had ceramic teeth in my mouth the whole time’ which made it hard for him to even speak.
Cage also said he’d be up for reprising his role as the vampire in some sort of origin story.
He was nearly cast in the role of another magical creature a long time ago, almost securing the role of layered ogre Shrek.
No, seriously.