A. D. Amorosi, October 2014

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

A Rebel at Ease Among Rebels

     Nicolas Cage comes with a ton of personal baggage every time he hits the screen: the depth and length of his stretch into method acting; his impulsiveness with women; his passion for comic book mythology; his love of castles, especially all things Transylvanian; his tax woes. You can hardly read a story about him or a review of one of his movies —and there are many, if you consider his filmography and pay attention to Andy Samberg’s impersonations of Cage—without feeling the wrath of cinema writers looking to take him to task for collecting Superman comics or eating cockroaches.

“Now even the art of film criticism... incorporated how many homes I bought or sold into the review,” Cage said not long after making and releasing Bad Lieutenant. “It should always be about the work itself. What difference does it make if Bill Clinton had an affair—how does that affect his performance as President?”

All that should stop now. Not just because, he’s right and much that is in real life shouldn’t matter, but rather because his acting has settled into a simmering mix of sharp, grand incisiveness and earnest, wide-eyed wonder. He’s a finely tuned instrument made richer when the composition is at its peak. Even films that don’t deserve him or his dedication (there are several, but not as many as critics would have you believe) are made bolder and more audacious with his devoted participation.

“I am in the process of reinventing myself,” he said in 2012. “I am returning to my roots, which is independently spirited, dramatic characters. I had taken a year off to re-evaluate everything I had done, different kinds of performances I had done, the more operatic and more baroque stuff like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), Drive Angry (2011) or Season of the Witch (2011). I wanted to find something where I could use my life experience, my memories and my emotions.”

That’s where Left Behind comes in. Authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have crafted 16 top-selling novels (along with a children’s series of books) based on the Christian faith’s dispensationalist End Times—better known as the Rapture, currently a ripe field for media-makers what with HBO’s diabolical The Leftovers now going into its second season. Though Left Behind has been made into a small series of films and a computer video game earlier in the 2000s, it is the series’ authors who believe that Left Behind never had the benefit of a big name and credible actor (Cage) and a top notch filmmaker (Vic Armstrong, a second unit director on The Amazing Spider-Man, Thor and 2011’s Season of the Witch where he first worked with Cage). “With Vic I could go within,” says Cage. “Exhale. Live in the moment of the scene. He gave me room to breathe, find the truth.”

LaHaye has been quoted as saying that Cage and Armstong’s take on Left Behind makes it "the best movie I have ever seen on the Rapture,” with Jenkins quoted as saying “I believe it does justice to the novel and will renew interest in the entire series.” Each of the novel’s authors participated in the new film’s script.

Currently filming Pay the Ghost, Cage said, “I was very taken by the family dynamic that was played out in this script. That’s what drew me to the project, that and the opportunity to work with Armstrong again.” Because Cage had a good rapport with the director on Left Behind, he felt as if he could get to where he wanted to go as an actor quicker, get to its depth and feel more directly. “This is a person put in an extraordinary situation,” says Cage of his character Rayford Steele, a pilot who becomes part of a small group of survivors left behind when millions suddenly vanish and earth gets plunged into fiery destruction. “This is a man who realizes what his values are. He reaches a catharsis through the experience of this extraordinary flight that he is on. It makes him get back to the heart of his relationship with his family.” If anything in this film comes across for Cage (or rather through Cage) it is that people make mistakes and that love is all at the end. “How do you make such an extraordinary set of circumstances authentic? How do you make it real? That became our challenge.”

Cage mentions, at first, that part of the actor’s responsibility was to “play it,” the bizarre explosive circumstances unfolding within Left Behind as cinema verite, to make it real. That’s just the sort of film that drives him in the first place. “I’ve never been afraid to venture into the unknown—take City of Angels for instance,” Cage said, reminding us of his 1998 Americanized version of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire where the actor plays a seraphim. “I like doing films that face impossibilities, the challenges of making them real. If I could do something honestly and authentically with all this chaos around me—how do I make that organic. That’s the goal.”

Speaking to the culture of End Times that finds The Leftovers a big hit, I asked Cage about his connection to the aesthetics of the Rapture. He finds that there is a zeitgeist at work where art and artists are driven to such a message. “Collectively, there is something. I didn’t know about The Leftovers until someone brought it up to me. I wasn’t aware of it. But it’s like when one man invented the steam train in one part of the world, with another doing likewise on the other side of the globe, and they never spoke. We’re all just tapping into something subconsciously. I always try to come at a movie with a set of truths, a place of truth, even if it’s truth in my imagination. I don’t want to act. That implies lying. Acting is about trying to get to a truth within my past, my memory, my experience and to make it real, now, in the moment. Bring it to the situation my characters are in. This time out, it was about recalling emotions, say what I might want to say for real, within such extraordinary circumstances.”

When I asked about how his role in Left Behind connects to his other gigs, Cage talks about his character, Ray, the captain of a jumbo jet who flirts with his flight attendant, as a man who has lost his way, forgot the true path his life should have been on. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s just making the same mistake that lots of people in powerful positions do.” Cage talks about the seduction of the flesh taking away from the importance of family. “It’s the call of the wild. Many guys do it, but Ray luckily makes it back to his wife and kids. That’s his true goal throughout—even through tragedy—just to get on the phone with his daughter to say he’s sorry.” As a father himself, Cage found that aspect of his role gut wrenching. “I don’t think it’s possible to see this movie and not get a little verklempt,” he says with a laugh. “It’s a really emotional moment.”

Talking about these blunders, talking about seeing the light of the Rapture’s rays, talking about drawing hope from family, Cage states that he wants Left Behind to affect people of all faiths…and no faith. “When you have those bad moments, it’s like the old saying, ‘there are no atheists in foxholes.’ Whether you’re in crisis or not, you should know that everyone is invited to the table.” This sounds a bit different from what the actor has mentioned previously. Cage has said in the past that he did not have a religion in his life. “I wasn’t raised that way,” he said back in 1996. “My father always believed that if I was going to have a religion I should discover it on my own and not have it crammed down my throat at a young age. I kind of wish I had some religion.” Now, during this conversation on Left Behind, Cage mentions being familiar with the Rapture and all of its implications, even though he’s not schooled in Bible verse. “My brother Mark, though, is a Christian pastor and he was very excited about this. He told me how much I really had to do the movie. I was already invested in it and loved the script, but seeing his passion really inspired me.” He’s not necessarily turned on, as an actor, by roles meant to change or uplift lives. Cage is, however, interested in spiritual themes. “Look at my filmography. It’s all right there. Without going into my own spiritually—which is private, not for public consumption and very sacred to me—I like to make films that explore these outer worlds. I like to let my work do that talking.”