The most Nicolas Cage movie ever to be made is arriving at SXSW soon in the form of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” In the film, Nicolas Cage plays Nicolas Cage, but a fictionalized version of the character who is so down on his luck that he has to go visit a criminal’s birthday party for a $1 million payday. Obviously, this is a film that could only be made if Cage was willing to star in it. And surprisingly, it wasn’t an easy sell.
Speaking to THR, Nicolas Cage talked about his reluctance to take on “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” and why he ultimately not only said yes to filmmaker Tom Gormican, but he also offered up his own self-deprecating jokes and moments for the film.
“I wanted no part of it,” the actor admitted. “But when I got Tom’s letter, then I thought, ‘OK, he’s not just trying to mock so-called Nick Cage; there is a real interest in some of the earlier work.’ His tone was more of a celebration of some of [the actor’s iconic onscreen] moments — like being at the bottom of the pool in ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ or [using] the gold guns in ‘Face/Off.’”
He continued, “What really put the hook in me was a sequence that is no longer in the movie. It was a sequence where the Nick Cage character goes into a series of vignettes that are all stylized in the German expressionism of ‘The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.’ So there was a sequence in black and white that was a ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ race in a Mustang, there was the ‘Leaving Las Vegas’ character in a hotel room. It was fun to make and cool to look at. Ultimately, the studio decided it was too far out for audiences.”
“I [also] really responded to the Nicky character, this younger version of myself,” Cage added. “They were [initially] talking more about like having the character be like Cameron Poe from ‘Con Air’ — but that’s not me. Look at my appearance on the Wogan show in England when I was promoting ‘Wild at Heart.’ That guy was an obnoxious, irreverent, arrogant madman. That’s the young version of me that I think that I would be confronting as the contemporary Nick Cage.”
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Of course, the actor eventually did sign on to star in the film. Not only that, he is also a producer on the film, which gave him even more creative input on the character of Nicolas Cage. In fact, he was willing to not only bring up his past films, but also he wanted to play into the “memeification” of previous roles, such as in “The Wicker Man,” with a “not the bees” moment.
“I put ‘not the bees’ in there. That wasn’t in the script. I was sending that up,” said Cage. “This was an opportunity to play with the memeification that has transpired around that. [Fans have] created this other persona that has a life of its own. It’s like their Frankenstein’s monster, and so I’m playing with that. There were a few things I predominantly already spoke about.”
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is set to debut at this year’s SXSW Film Festival before it hits theaters on April 22.