Today is Nicolas Cage’s birthday. I’ve made it clear on several occasions that this guy is without a doubt my favourite actor, and I’ve only once really gone into detail about it - essentially, when you say someone like Morgan Freeman or Michael Caine is your favourite actor, nobody questions it. They think, “ah yes, that makes sense because of the one role I tend to associate that person with” and go on with their day.
And no disrespect to those guys - they’re fine actors with admirable bodies of work. But they’ve been phoning in their performances for years. They show up, go “my oh my” and “yesh mashtah Wayne” respectively, collect their paychecks and sleep for the rest of the shooting schedule.
With Nicolas Cage, regardless of the scope or budget of the project he’s involved in, you get his full effort and enthusiasm. It produces some unintentionally hilarious results like Vampire’s Kiss and of course, The Wicker Man, but it also results in instant classics like Raising Arizona, Matchstick Men, Lord of War, Adaptation… the list goes on.
I don’t know. I just really respect that he’s just as stoked to make movies as he was when he first started doing this stuff, and that’s how you know it was the right career decision for him. And honestly, that’s the kind of artist I want to be.
Happy birthday, Mr. Cage. Killing you in The Wicker Man may not have brought back our god damn honey, but it brought back hope.
That sounds like I want you to be dead. I do not.
This is the exact reasoning why I unironically love Nicolas Cage. He puts forth 100% of his effort into acting and isn’t afraid to put himself out there. No question, the man has made some bad movies, but you can never say that he didn’t give it his best. So many people are afraid of failure to the point where they don’t even try, yet Nic fails often, but he always comes back to give it another shot. He just doesn’t care. He’s doing what he loves and getting paid millions for it. I think that’s admirable.
I can’t think of any other actor who has the potential to deliver an outstanding performance or an unintentionally hilarious one. That is why I love Nicolas Cage.
Happy Birthday.
