Nicolas Cage Biography
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Not many people can boast that they were expelled from elementary school only to later find a career that would provide a seven-figure salary, but Nicolas Cage is one of the few so anointed. The nephew of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Cage changed his name so that his acting career would not be chalked up to nepotism. He chose “Cage” out of admiration for avant-garde musician John Cage, as well as for comic book hero Luke Cage.
Even if he had retained the family name, it’s not likely that anyone would consider Cage a slacker, holding fast to his uncle’s coattails. Stories abound concerning the extremes to which he will go to “feel” his roles, not the least of which was the time he had a tooth extracted without Novocaine in order to fully appreciate the pain suffered by the wounded soldier he played in the 1984 film Birdy.
Cage has appeared in so many films including Face/Off (1997), Gone In 60 Seconds (2000), National Treasure (2004), Ghost Rider (2007), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), and Kick-Ass (2010). Cage has been married three times: to Patricia Arquette, Lisa Marie Presley, and Alice Kim Cage, his current wife.
Born January 7, 1964, in Long Beach, CA, to a literature professor father and dancer/choreographer mother, Cage first got into acting while a student at Beverly Hills High School. After dropping out at the age of 17, he made his film debut with a small part in Amy Heckerling’s 1982 classic, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Following a lead role in 1983′s Valley Girl, Cage spent the remainder of the decade playing endearingly bizarre and disreputable men, most notably in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Raising Arizona (1987), and the same year’s Moonstruck, the last of which won him a Golden Globe nomination and a legion of female fans ecstatic over the actor’s unconventional romantic appeal.
The 1990s saw Cage take on a string of diverse roles ranging from a violent ex-con in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) to a sweet-natured private eye in the romantic comedy Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) to a dying alcoholic in Mike Figgis’ astonishing Leaving Las Vegas in 1995. For this last role, Cage won a Best Actor Oscar for his quietly devastating portrayal, and, respectability in hand, gained an official entrance into Hollywood’s higher ranks. After winning his Oscar, along with a score of other honors for his performance, Cage switched gears again, choosing to star in a series of big-budget action films.
1996 saw him take the lead in the Alcatraz thriller The Rock, and the following year he made Con Air and John Woo’s Face/Off, the latter of which attained overwhelming critical as well as commercial success. 1998 marked Cage’s return to sentimental romance with his performance as a love-struck angel in City of Angels, a remake of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire. Rejecting the possibility of continuity, Cage next made the crime thriller 8MM (1999), in which he played a surveillance expert investigating the suspicious death of an actress in the underground porn industry. The same year, he starred as a burnt-out paramedic in Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, sharing the screen with such notables as then-real-life wife Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, and Ving Rhames.
After a turn as a man who comes to question his values and work ethic in the lightly dramatic romantic comedy The Family Man in 2000, Cage moved back into action with Gone in 60 Seconds before expanding his career in the newfound role of producer to such films as Shadow of the Vampire (2000), Sonny (2001) and, The Life of David Gale (also 2002). That same year also found Cage in the role of romantic lead opposite Penelope Cruz in the eagerly anticipated Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
Long considered a mainstream actor of decidedly quirky sensibilities, Cage cemented this perception in teaming with Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze for a duel role in the complex comedy Adaptation (2002). Appearing as both screenwriter Charlie Kaufman as well as his fictional brother Donald, Adaptation found Cage detailing the frustrated siblings’ attempt to adapt author Susan Orlean’s seemingly unfilmable novel The Orchid Thief as a feature film. A weighty role that demanded an actor capable of portraying characters that couldn’t differ more emotionally despite their outward appearance, Adaptation found Cage recieving his second Oscar nomination.
Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, winning once for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. His other nomination was for his portrayal of real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman’s fictional twin Donald in Adaptation. Despite these successes, most of his lower-profile films have performed poorly at the box office compared to his mainstream action/adventure roles. The suspense thriller 8mm (1999) was not a box office success, but is now considered a cult film. He took the lead role in the 2001 film Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and learned to play the mandolin from scratch for the part.
In 2005, two offbeat films he headlined, Lord of War and The Weather Man, failed to find a significant audience despite nationwide releases and good reviews for his acting in those roles. Poor reviews for The Wicker Man resulted in low box office sales. The much criticized Ghost Rider (2007), based on the Marvel Comics character, fared better, earning more than $45 million (the top earner) during its opening weekend and over $208 million worldwide through the weekend ending on March 25, 2007. Also in 2007, he made his directorial debut in Sonny and he starred in Next, which shares the concept of a glimpse into an alternate timeline with The Family Man (2000).
Most of Cage’s movies that have achieved financial success were in the action/adventure genre. In his second-highest grossing film to date, National Treasure, he plays an eccentric historian who goes on a dangerous adventure to find treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States. Other action hits include The Rock, in which Cage plays a young FBI chemical weapons expert who infiltrates Alcatraz Island in hopes of neutralizing a terrorist threat, Face/Off, a John Woo film where he plays both a hero and a villain, and World Trade Center, director Oliver Stone’s film regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks. He had a small but notable role as the Chinese criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu in Rob Zombie’s fake trailer Werewolf Women of the S.S. from the B-movie double feature Grindhouse.
In recent years, Cage made his directorial debut with Sonny, a low-budget drama starring James Franco as a male prostitute whose mother (Brenda Blethyn) serves as his pimp. Cage had a small role in the grim film, which received poor reviews and a short run in a limited number of theatres. Cage’s producing career includes Shadow of the Vampire, the first film from Saturn Films.
In early December 2006, Cage announced at the Bahamas International Film Festival that he planned to curtail his future acting endeavors to pursue other interests. In November 2007, Cage was spotted backstage at a Ring of Honor wrestling show in New York City researching his role for the The Wrestler. The role was ultimately played by Mickey Rourke, who received an Academy Award nomination for his performance.
In 2008, Cage appeared as Joe, a contract killer who undergoes a change of heart while on a work outing in Bangkok, in the film Bangkok Dangerous. The film is shot by the Pang Brothers and has a distinct South-East Asian flavor.
In 2009, Cage starred in sci-fi thriller Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas. In the film, he plays an MIT professor who examines the contents of a time capsule unearthed at his son’s elementary school. Startling predictions found inside the capsule that have already come true lead him to believe the world is going to end at the close of the week, and that he and his son are somehow involved in the destruction. The film received mainly negative reviews but was the box office winner on its opening weekend.
Also in 2009, Cage starred in the film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, directed by acclaimed German director Werner Herzog. He portrayed a corrupt police officer with gambling, drug and alcohol addictions. The film was very well-received by critics, holding a rating of 85% positive reviews on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
Cage received lauds for his performance, with Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune writing “Herzog has found his ideal interpreter, a performer whose truth lies deep in the artifice of performance: ladies and gentlemen, Nicolas Cage, at his finest.” This film reunited Cage with Eva Mendes, who played his love interest in Ghost Rider.
In 2010 Cage stars in the period piece Season of the Witch, playing a 14th-century knight transporting a girl accused of causing the Black Plague to a monastery, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in which he will play the sorcerer. Nicolas Cage remains as one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors, earning $40 million in 2009 according to Forbes Magazine.
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