Nicolas Cage facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nicolas Cage
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Cage at the 2013 Deauville American Film Festival
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Nicolas Kim Coppola
January 7, 1964 Long Beach, California, U.S.
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| Occupation | Actor, film producer |
| Years active | 1981–present |
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Works
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Full list |
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| Children | 3 |
| Family | Coppola |
| Awards | Full list |
Nicolas Kim Coppola (born January 7, 1964), known by his stage name Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award. Known for his versatility as an actor, his participation in various film genres have gained him a cult following.
Born into the Coppola family, Cage started his career in films such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), and Valley Girl (1983) as well various films of his uncle Francis Ford Coppola such as Rumble Fish (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). He earned critical success for his romantic roles in Moonstruck (1987) and Raising Arizona (1987), and earned an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the drama film Leaving Las Vegas (1995). He received another Academy Award nomination for his performance as twins Charlie and Donald Kaufman in the comedy-drama film Adaptation (2002).
Cage established himself in mainstream action films, such as The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), Face/Off (1997), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), the National Treasure film series (2004–2007), the Ghost Rider film series (2007–2011), and Kick-Ass (2010). He also took on dramatic roles in City of Angels (1998), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), The Family Man (2000), Matchstick Men (2003), and The Wicker Man (2006). He has voiced characters in The Croods film series (2013–2020) and in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018). He earned renewed critical recognition for his starring roles in Mandy (2018), Pig (2021), The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022), Dream Scenario (2023) and Longlegs (2024).
Cage owns the production company Saturn Films and has produced films such as Shadow of the Vampire (2000) and The Life of David Gale (2003), and has directed Sonny (2002). For his contributions to the film industry, he was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998. He was ranked No. 40 in Empire magazine's The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list in 2007 and was placed No. 37 in Premiere's 100 Most Powerful People in Hollywood in 2008.
Early life and family
Cage was born in Long Beach, California, to August Coppola, a professor of literature, and Joy Vogelsang, a dancer and choreographer. He was raised in a Catholic family. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of German and Polish ancestry. His paternal grandparents were composer Carmine Coppola and actress Italia Pennino, and his paternal great-grandparents were immigrants from Bernalda, Basilicata. Through his father, he is a nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and of actress Talia Shire, and a cousin of directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola, film producer Gian-Carlo Coppola, and actors Robert and Jason Schwartzman.
Cage's two brothers are New York radio personality Marc "The Cope" Coppola and director Christopher Coppola. He attended Beverly Hills High School, which is known for its many alumni who became entertainers. He aspired to act from an early age and also attended UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. His first non-cinematic acting experience was in a school production of Golden Boy. He said he started acting because he "wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden. Nothing affected me—no rock song, no classical music—the way Dean affected me in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, 'That's what I want to do'."
At fifteen years old he tried to convince his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, to give him a screen test, telling him "I'll show you acting." His outburst was met with "silence in the car". By this stage of his career, Coppola had already directed Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Robert De Niro. Although early in his career Cage appeared in some of his uncle's films, he changed his name to Nicolas Cage to avoid the appearance of nepotism as Coppola's nephew. His choice of name was inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero Luke Cage and composer John Cage.
Career
1981–1988: Early work and breakthrough
Cage made his acting debut in the 1981 television pilot The Best of Times, which was never picked up by ABC. His film debut followed in 1982, with a minor role as an unnamed co-worker of Judge Reinhold's character in the coming-of-age film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, having originally auditioned for Reinhold's part. His experience on the film was marred by cast members endlessly quoting his uncle's films, which inspired him to change his name. Cage's first starring role came opposite Deborah Foreman in the romantic comedy Valley Girl (1983), in which he played a punk who falls in love with the titular valley girl, a plot loosely inspired by Romeo and Juliet. The film was a modest box office success and has been branded a cult classic. He auditioned for the role of Dallas Winston in his uncle's film The Outsiders, based on S.E. Hinton's novel, but lost to Matt Dillon. Cage, however, would co-star in Coppola's adaptation of another Hinton novel, Rumble Fish, in that year.
In 1984, Cage appeared in three period films, none of which fared well at the box office. In the drama, Racing with the Moon (1984), Cage featured opposite Sean Penn as friends who are awaiting deployment to the U.S. Marine Corps. Coppola's crime drama The Cotton Club saw him play a fictionalized version of mob hitman Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, earning praise from critic Paul Attanasio for "artully [using] his few moments to sketch a brawny, violent thug". His final release of the year was Alan Parker's drama Birdy, in which he starred with Matthew Modine as two close friends and their trauma inflicted by serving in the Vietnam War. Cage lost weight for the role and had two of his front teeth pulled out to appear disfigured. Despite massively underperforming at the box office, the film, and Cage and Modine's performances, received positive reviews, with The New York Times critic Janet Maslin writing, "Mr. Cage very sympathetically captures Al's urgency and frustration. Together, these actors work miracles with what might have been unplayable."
In 1986, Cage starred in the little-seen Canadian sports drama The Boy in Blue and his uncle's fantasy comedy Peggy Sue Got Married (1987) as the husband to Kathleen Turner's character, who has travelled back in time to their high school days. He then starred in the Coen brothers' crime comedy Raising Arizona (1987) as a dim-witted ex-con. Cage's biggest breakthrough came in 1987 with the romantic comedy Moonstruck, in which he starred alongside Cher as a hot-tempered baker who falls in love with his estranged brother's widowed fiancé. The film was a hit with critics and audiences alike, earning Cage a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy In his retrospective review, Roger Ebert wrote that he felt Cage's performance was worthy of an Oscar.
1989–1994: Career slump
In 1989, Cage starred in the black comedy Vampire's Kiss as a man who falls in love with a vampire and soon begins to believe he himself is a vampire. The film was a major box office flop, but has developed a cult following largely due to Cage's surrealistic and over-the-top performance appearing in internet memes. Critic Vincent Canby felt the film was "dominated and destroyed by Mr. Cage's chaotic, self-indulgent performance". After filming the Italian drama Time to Kill (1989) in Zimbabwe, he starred in David Lynch's romantic crime film Wild at Heart (1990) with Laura Dern as a pair of lovers on the run from gangsters hired to kill Cage's character "Sailor" Ripley. Cage was drawn to the project because he was "always attracted to those passionate, almost unbridled romantic characters" and it allowed him to impersonate one of his heroes, Elvis Presley, in scenes in which Sailor sings. Wild at Heart received mixed reviews upon release, despite controversially winning the Palme d'Or at 1990 Cannes Film Festival. Cage would reunite with Lynch and Dern for the avant-garde concert performance Industrial Symphony No. 1.
Also in 1990, he starred as a helicopter pilot in the action film Fire Birds, which was panned by critics and negatively compared to Top Gun (1986). His "goofy 'everyman'" performance in the romantic comedy Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) garnered some positive critical notices, including from Roger Ebert, who defended Cage amidst some critics finding his acting "excessive" and earned Cage his second Gloden Globe nomination. He hosted an episode of the variety show Saturday Night Live to promote the film, his only time hosting the show. None of Cage's three films in 1993—Deadfall (directed by his brother Christopher), Amos & Andrew and Red Rock West—performed well at the box office; though the last-mentioned neo-noir thriller in which he played a drifter mistaken for a hitman was lauded by critics. The comedy Guarding Tess (1994) paired Cage with Shirley MacLaine as a Secret Service agent protecting a former First Lady; however, it was dismissed as being derivative by some critics. He next starred alongside Bridget Fonda in the romantic comedy It Could Happen to You as a cash-strapped police officer who offers to share his lottery winnings with a waitress and then the much-criticized box office flop Christmas comedy Trapped in Paradise with the Saturday Night Live actors Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey. According to Lovitz, Cage directed portions of the film because its director, George Gallo, offered little direction.
1995–2003: Critical success and action star
Cage's performance in the crime film Kiss of Death (1995) was seen by many critics as the film's strong point, but his most acclaimed performance yet came in the drama Leaving Las Vegas. The role won Cage the Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.
In 1996, he starred alongside Sean Connery and Ed Harris in Michael Bay's The Rock, the first of a string of action films for Cage. In the film, he played an FBI chemical weapons specialist breaking into Alcatraz federal prison. The Rock was a box office and critical success, with journalist Alexander Larman stating the film "launched Cage into an unexpected vocation as an offbeat action star." Next, he starred in Con Air and Face/Off, two commercially successful action thrillers that were both released in June 1997. Along with John Cusack and John Malkovich, Cage led an ensemble cast in Con Air as a parolee who must thwart an attempted prison break aboard a US Marshals aircraft. Jerry Bruckheimer, the film's producer, offered the role to Cage after being impressed with his performances in Leaving Las Vegas and The Rock. Cage accepted despite disappointment at not being offered the villain role. Ebert felt Cage "[made] the wrong choice... by playing Cameron Poe as a slow-witted Elvis type who is very, very earnest and approaches every task with tunnel vision; it would have been more fun if he'd been less of a hayseed." John Woo's Face/Off saw Cage and John Travolta star in dual roles as sworn enemies—a terrorist and an FBI agent—who both undergo face transplants to impersonate each other, requiring Cage and Travolta to switch characters. Both performances were praised by critics, with the BBC writing in their review "Travolta and Cage invest their dual roles with physical subtleties that reflect the other actor's character."
After starring in these action films back-to-back, Cage decided to "return to more serious fare" in the romantic fantasy film City of Angels (1998), a loose remake of the German film Wings of Desire (1987) in which he played an angel who falls in love with a woman (played by Meg Ryan). Critics were split on the film and Cage's performance. Brian De Palma's thriller Snake Eyes, his second film of 1998, starred Cage as a corrupt detective investigating a political assassination at a boxing match he is attending. The film was met with mixed reviews, which were largely critical of its screenplay.
Other films included Martin Scorsese's 1999 New York City paramedic drama Bringing Out the Dead and Ridley Scott's 2003 black comedy crime film Matchstick Men, in which he played a con artist with obsessive–compulsive disorder. Most of Cage's movies that have achieved financial success were in the action/adventure genre. These include The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, and Gone in 60 Seconds, with Cage as a retired car thief. He took the lead role in the 2001 film Captain Corelli's Mandolin and learned to play the mandolin from scratch for the part. In 2002, he was again nominated for Oscar and Golden Globe best actor awards for his portrayal of real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman's fictional twin Donald in Adaptation. Cage made his directorial debut in 2002 with Sonny, a low-budget drama starring James Franco. Cage had a small role in the film, which received poor reviews and a short run in a limited number of theaters. Cage's producing career includes Shadow of the Vampire, the first effort from Saturn Films.
2004–2011: Franchise films
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In his second-highest-grossing film to date, National Treasure, he plays an eccentric historian who goes on a dangerous adventure to find treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States. In 2005, two films he headlined, Lord of War and The Weather Man, failed to find a significant audience despite nationwide releases and good reviews for his performances. The 2006 remake of The Wicker Man was very poorly reviewed, and failed to make back its $40 million budget. The much-criticized Ghost Rider (2007), based on the Marvel Comics character, fared better, earning more than $45 million (the top earner) during its opening weekend and over $208 million worldwide through the weekend ending on March 25, 2007. Also in 2007, he had a small but notable role as the Chinese criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu in Rob Zombie's fake trailer Werewolf Women of the S.S. from the B-movie double feature Grindhouse and starred in Next, which shared the concept of a glimpse into an alternate timeline with Cage's film, The Family Man (2000).
In November 2007, Cage was spotted backstage at a Ring of Honor wrestling show in New York City researching for the lead role for The Wrestler. However, Cage dropped out of production shortly afterward because he felt that he did not have enough time to prepare for the role and director Darren Aronofsky preferred Mickey Rourke for the lead role. Rourke would go on to receive an Academy Award nomination for his performance. In an interview with /Film, Aronofsky said of Cage's decision to leave the film that "Nic was a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but ... you know, Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and he is old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity, so he pulled himself out of the race."
In 2008, Cage appeared as Joe in the film Bangkok Dangerous. The film is shot by the Pang Brothers and has a distinctly South-East Asian flavor. In 2009, Cage starred in the science fiction thriller Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas. In the film, he plays an MIT professor who examines the contents of a time capsule unearthed at his son's elementary school. Startling predictions found inside the capsule that have already come true lead him to believe that the world is going to end at the close of the week and that he and his son are somehow involved in the destruction. The film received mixed reviews but was the box office winner on its opening weekend.
Also in 2009, Cage starred in the film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, directed by acclaimed German director Werner Herzog. He portrayed a corrupt police officer. The film was very well received by critics, holding a rating of 87% positive reviews on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Cage was lauded for his performance, with Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune writing "Herzog has found his ideal interpreter, a performer whose truth lies deep in the artifice of performance: ladies and gentlemen, Nicolas Cage, at his finest." This film reunited Cage with Eva Mendes, who played his love interest in Ghost Rider. In 2010, Cage starred in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and the next year, headlined the period piece Season of the Witch. In 2011, Cage reprised his role in Ghost Rider's sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
2012–2017: Prolificity and direct-to-video films
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In 2013, Cage was involved in many projects. Notable films including animated film The Croods, in which he voiced a character named Grug Crood. The Croods received positive reviews from critics and was a box-office success grossing $585 million against a budget of $135 million. He starred as main character in The Frozen Ground, a thriller crime drama film directed and written by Scott Walker. The film has received mixed reviews though Cage's performance was cited as a highlight and solid. He also starred in Joe, an independent crime drama film directed and co-produced by David Gordon Green, adaptation from Larry Brown's 1991 novel of the same name. The film premiered at the 70th Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2013, with a subsequent screening at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. It was a box office flop, grossing only $2.36 million from a $4 million budget, but received critical acclaim from critics, who praised Cage's performance and Green's direction.
The 2016 black comedy Dog Eat Dog, Cage's second film with Paul Schrader, reunited him with Willem Dafoe (after Wild at Heart) as a pair of ex-convicts hired to kidnap a baby. The film had its premiere as the closing entry for the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2016. It was released on November 4, 2016, in the United States.
Cage starred alongside Selma Blair and Anne Winters in Brian Taylor's horror comedy film, Mom and Dad, which premiered in the Midnight Madness section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released in theaters on January 19, 2018, and received positive reviews from critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes defining his performance as "over-the-top." Director John Waters appreciated the film, naming Mom and Dad as one of the best movies of 2018, placing it fourth on his personal top list.
2018–present: Career renaissance
In May 2020 it was announced that Cage would be playing the role of Joe Exotic in a scripted eight-episode Tiger King series, written and executive produced by Dan Lagana. It was announced that the project was scrapped in July 2021.
In April 2013, DreamWorks Animation announced a sequel to the film The Croods. In September 2013, it was confirmed that Nicolas Cage would reprise his role in the sequel as Grug from the first film. The Croods: A New Age, directed by Joel Crawford, was released theatrically in the United States on November 25, 2020.
Cage produced and starred in the 2021 film Pig, where he plays Robin "Rob" Feld, a former chef turned reclusive truffle-forager that must return to his past in Portland in search of his beloved foraging pig after she is kidnapped. Cage received critical acclaim for his performance and earned a second nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor. He gained further acclaim for portraying a fictionalized version of himself in the 2022 action comedy film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
In November 2021, Cage was cast in the Universal Classic Monsters spin-off film, Renfield. Cage will feature in a supporting role, to Nicholas Hoult's titular R.M. Renfield, as Dracula. The film will be directed by Chris McKay, with a script by Ryan Ridley, from an original story by Robert Kirkman. McKay and Kirkman will also produce the feature film alongside David Alpert, Bryan Furst and Sean Furst. The project will be a joint-venture production between Skybound Entertainment, and Universal Pictures. Principal photography began in early 2022.
Cage made his video game debut in July 2023 as himself in Dead by Daylight. His appearance was teased on May 17, 2023.
In early 2023, it was announced Cage was set to play a live action version of Peter Parker / Spider-Man Noir on Amazon Prime Video. The show would take place in an alternate 1930s New York. In July 2024, the show was confirmed to be titled Spider-Noir. Filming is set to begin in September 2024 in Los Angeles. Also in July, Cage starre in the horror thriller film Longlegs, which he produced.
Acting credits and accolades
For his contributions to the film industry, Cage was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998 with a motion pictures star located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard. In May 2001, Cage was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts by California State University, Fullerton. He spoke at the commencement ceremony. Cage has also been nominated for an Academy Award twice. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film Leaving Las Vegas in 1995. He was nominated for a second one for his role in the film Adaptation in 2002.
He also won a Golden Globe award, Screen Actors Guild award, and many more awards for Leaving Las Vegas. He has received nominations by the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and BAFTA for his films Adaptation, Honeymoon in Vegas, and Moonstruck. He has also won and been nominated for many other awards.
Personal life
Relationships and family
In 1988, Cage began dating actress Christina Fulton, with whom he has a son, Weston Coppola Cage (born December 26, 1990). Weston has been involved in two black metal bands, and appeared in his father's film Lord of War as a helicopter mechanic. Through Weston, Cage has two grandsons born in 2014 and 2016.
Cage has been married five times. His first wife was actress Patricia Arquette, whom he married in April 1995 and divorced in 2001.
Cage's second marriage was to singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley. (Cage, an Elvis fan, used Elvis as the inspiration for his performance in Wild at Heart.) They married in Kamuela, Hawaii, on August 10, 2002, and filed for divorce 107 days later on November 25, 2002. The divorce was finalized on May 24, 2004.
Cage's third wife was Alice Kim. They were married at a private ranch in northern California on July 30, 2004. She gave birth to their son Kal-El (after Superman's birth name) on October 3, 2005. They divorced in January 2016.
In March 2019, Cage married Erika Koike in Las Vegas, only to file for annulment four days later. He was granted a divorce from Koike three months later.
On February 16, 2021, Cage married Riko Shibata. Their daughter, August Francesca, was born on September 7, 2022.
Charitable activities
Cage has been called one of the most generous stars in Hollywood. He donated $2 million to Amnesty International for them to use to offer rehabilitation shelters, medical services and psychological and reintegration services to some of the 300,000 children forced to fight in conflicts across the world. He has also donated $1 million to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. He became the first artist to support ArtWorks, an artist engagement program to raise awareness of fundamental rights at work, including freedom from slavery and from child labor. During 2023, while filming The Surfer in Western Australia, Cage personally phoned in an AU$5,000 donation to the Channel Seven Perth Telethon.
Cage has also been honored with a Humanitarian award from the United Nations for his works and appointed as a UN ambassador for Global Justice in 2009 and again in 2013. He led a campaign around the film Lord of War to raise awareness about international arms control, supported "Heal the Bay", the United Negro College Fund efforts, and the Royal United Hospital's Forever Friends Appeal to build intensive care units for babies.
See also
In Spanish: Nicolas Cage para niños
- Coppola family tree
- List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees
