Oscar Profile #414: Nicolas Cage

Born January 7, 1964 in Long Beach, California, Nicolas Kim Coppola, known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is the son of literature professor August Coppola and his wife, dancer/choreographer Joy Vogelsang. He is the nephew of Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola and Oscar-nominated actress Talia Shire.

Inspired to become an actor by watching James Dean in East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause, he told his famous uncle at 15 that he would show him what acting was all about if he were to cast him in one of his films. His outburst met with dead silence from Coppola.

Making his professional acting debut under his birth name in the 1981 TV movie, Best of Times, he made his first big screen appearance in 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but his role was mostly cut from the film. Changing his name to Cage so as not to be accused of treading on his uncle’s name, he played his first lead in 1983’s Valley Girl followed by his uncle’s Rumble Fish for which he had to audition. Stardom quickly followed with such films as Birdy, Peggy Sue Got Married opposite Oscar nominee Kathleen Turner and Moonstruck opposite Oscar winner Cher. He entered into a relationship with actress Christina Fulton in 1988 which produced son Weston Coppola Cage in 1990. Weston, an actor and singer who has been married three times, made Cage a grandfather for the first time in 2014.

Cage based his performance in 1990’s Wild at Heart on Elvis Presley whose daughter Priscilla would become his second wife in 2002. In the meantime, his career flourished in such films as 1992’s Honeymoon in Vegas, 1994’s Guarding Tess and It Could Happen to You and 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas for which he won an Oscar. That same year he married first wife Patricia Arquette who had pursued in the early 1980s before they went their separate ways. The marriage would last six years during which Cage starred in such high profile films as The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, City of Angels, 8MM, Bringing Out the Dead, Gone in Sixty Seconds and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

In 2002, the year he married Priscilla, Cage starred in Windtalkers, directed James Franco in Sonny and starred in Adaptation for which he would receive a second Oscar nomination.

The marriage to Priscilla lasted only three months but took two years to dissolve after which he married third wife Alice Kim in 2004 with he subsequently had two children. That marriage ended in 2016.

Cage’s films from 2005 to the present have been many, but few have achieved the level of success as his previous work. Exceptions include 2005’s Lord of War, 2006’s World Trade Center, 2009’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and 2013’s Joe. At 54, Nicolas Cage remains one of our busiest actors. He currently has eight films in various stages of production.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

BIRDY (1984), directed by Alan Parker

One of the best films about the Vietnam War, this was one of three that Matthew Modine, who plays the title character, made in the 1980s. The others were Robert Altman’s earlier Steamers and Stanley Kubrick’s later Full Metal Jacket. Modine has the title role of the shell-shocked, catatonic Vietnam vet and life-long lover of birds who seems to be imagining himself as a bird. Cage is his childhood friend and fellow vet, with his own obvious physical problems from the war as well as some closely guarded emotional problem that come to the fore as he tries to help his friend recover. Both actors are extraordinary.

MOONSTRUCK (1987), directed by Norman Jewison

One of the best-loved romantic comedies of all time, Cher, in her Oscar-winning role, is totally engaging as an Italian widow engaged to a nice older man (Danny Aiello) she doesn’t really love. While he is in Italy visiting his dying mother, she meets and falls in love with his headstrong, young brother (Cage). Cher won an Oscar as did Olympia Dukakis who steals every scene she’s in as her mother who though suspecting her husband (Oscar nominated Vincent Gardenia) of straying is not herself above accepting the flirtations of a smitten college professor (John Mahoney). They’re all terrific, including Cage at his funniest.

LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995), directed by Mike Figgis

Cage won an Oscar for playing a Hollywood agent who has lost everything because of his alcoholism allegedly caused by his wife having left him and taken their son with her. He moves to Las Vegas intent on drinking himself to death. He rents a room in a sleazy motel where he hires a prostitute (Oscar nominated Elisabeth Shue) with whom he forms an uneasy friendship and a non-interference pact. Over time, Shue tries to get Cage to eat more in the hope they she can somehow save him, but their relationship deteriorates as he falls further into the abyss. This is a very dark film, but one that the actors manage to rise above.

ADAPTATION (2002), directed by Spike Jonze

Cage became only the third actor to receive an Oscar nomination for playing multiple characters in this film. The others were Peter Sellers who was nominated for 1964’s Dr. Strangelove and Lee Marvin who won for 1965’s Cat Ballou. Cage plays both real life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald. Chris Cooper won an Oscar for playing orchid hunter John Laroche. Meryl Streep was nominated for playing Susan Orlean whose book Cage’s character Charlie is trying to adapt for the screen. Kaufman was nominated for his screenplay under both his name and that of his fictional brother.

JOE (2013), directed by David Gordon Green

Cage had one of the best roles of his career in this, one of the best films he has ever made, playing a heavy drinker who has lost a lot of time in his life. In a forest where is the forman of a tree-cutting crew, he hires a 15-year-old boy (Tye Sheridan) who he tries to save from his abusive alcoholic father (Gary Poulter). Sheridan won multiple awards for his performances in this and the same year’s Mud opposite Matthew McConaughey as did director Green and Poulter, the homeless man Green hired to play Sheridan’s father. Poulter died on the street in Austin, Texas two months after the film was completed.