Celebrity Biographies
Nicolas Cage
Despite being part of the artistic Coppola clan, success has not precisely rained on him from heaven. Quite the contrary, her last name weighed heavily on him when she was just starting out (Rumble Law ) and some insidious co-star reminded her of her blood ties to Uncle Francis. Of course, no one remembers that anymore, because Nicholas Kim Coppola, renamed for the cinema as Nicolas Cage, has behind him a cinematographic baggage of fruitful evolution, which has allowed him to carve out an important niche on the big screen.
Today his name shines with its own light after winning the Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and his fabulous adaptation to the action genre is almost a blank check at the box office. He is what is said to be a solvent actor and that, in Hollywood, is what he counts. But like every story, Nicolas’s has parts of him, his stops and inns, his spaces of light and shadow…
He was born in Long Beach (California) 37 years ago and when he was 12 he suffered the divorce of his parents. While his mother was confined in a psychiatric continuum, he was under the influence of his father August, a university professor, who tried to bring him closer to classical music, literature and, of course, cinema. His interpretive incubation hatched when in 1982 he made his debut in the shoes of a surfer in That Exciting Course. He still hadn’t given her the point of changing her last name that would inspire her favorite Marvel superhero: Luke Cage. He was already wearing it when he played a Vietnam War veteran in the celebrated Birdy . Here he had a couple of teeth removed to give more realism to a scene. It was a first time in which he dared with everything (in the Vampire’s Kiss a real cockroach snacks!), and he went against everyone ( he drove Kathleen Turner out of her mind , his partner in Peggy Sue got married , and in other filmings the cables came to cross him, destroying the furniture). As he himself would later admit, he “was quite a wild boy, brimming with energy and a lover of punk rock.” However, Cher lobbied for him, and not another of hers, to conquer her under the influence of the magnificent Moon Charm. The Coen brothers also knew how to take advantage of a tenderness and comic viz hidden behind his rude facade, in Arizona Baby . From then on he would combine the medium-sized comedy with unequal fortune (Tess and Her Bodyguard ) with the romantic ( It Could Happen To You) , and substance-packed roles ( Wild at Heart , Taste of Death ) with others where there’s nothing to scratch ( Zandalee: Borderline Desire , Catch! to the thief! to the white or to the black? ).
Until 1995 Nicolas Cage’s career had progressed in a zig-zag, but from then on it would go in a straight line and like a rocket. For his role as a suicidal drunk in Leaving Las Vegas , he garnered rave reviews. Although it was a piece of advice from Sean Connery that opened his eyes to a gold mine. He put on “muscles”, brandished a pistol, and between lethal glances and explosions he got, between his chest and back, three absolutely vibrant and adrenaline-filled films: The Rock , With Air and Face to Face … He had entered through the front door in the fast-paced montage cinema and spectacular action scenes. Fortune was definitely smiling on him.
The last few years have made it possible for Cage to dose scripts. His interest in characters that delve deeper into the human psyche and his positive catharsis have led him to films as diverse as Murder in 8mm , Full Throttle , Snake Eyes , City of Angels and Family Man . Also, without fear of the genre where he has to function. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Sixty Seconds are the latest samples for the moment of the versatility of this all-terrain of current cinema who, after a failed marriage with the actress Patricia Arquetteand having a son (Weston), what he lacks is better luck in his private life. Perhaps then his characteristic and sad look will change forever and surprise us with a new and unexpected record.