“He could handle a venomous cottonmouth snake without protection. That showed me an actor that was fearless,” David Gordon Green said recently about his “Joe” star Nicolas Cage. “If it was appropriate for the role or his character, he would get in that mind-set and he could do anything—he would do anything. There’s a beauty to that.”
Co-starring Ty Sheridan, Green’s ninth feature-length movie features just Cage and young “The Tree of Life” and “Mud” actor and that’s it in terms of names. But the movie is filled with a motley crew of unknowns and stars Cage as an ex-con who meets a 15-year-old boy, becomes the unlikeliest of role models, and then is faced with the choice of redemption or ruin.
The film premiered last year at the Venice Film Festival and our reviewer described it as a “muscular and textured piece of work that shifts assuredly through tones and genre, features a rich and rewarding performance from Cage, and another excellent turn from his young co-star Tye Sheridan.”
Roadside Attractions will release “Joe” into the wild on April 11 and a bunch of new material has surfaced. Below, the first two clips from the film, a few new photos plus a 20 minute interview with Green and Cage from last year’s Toronto Film Festival.
