The greatest actor who never acts, according to Nicolas Cage: “Brutal realism”
Over the years, some actors develop a style that is so distinct that it is impossible to separate them from it. That’s undoubtedly what has happened to Nicolas Cage, even though the roles and projects he has taken on are so wildly different. There are no immediately apparent similarities uniting the vast range of performances under his belt, but there is a readily recognisable method to that madness.
The greatest example of this is probably the incredible episode in the sitcom Community, where a college student is given the assignment to answer a simple question: “Is Nicolas Cage a good or a bad actor?” Seems easy enough at first, but the quality spectrum of his filmography is so diverse that he ends up losing his mind, stunned into a state of shock where his brain is solely dominated by ‘Cageisms’.
For every Leaving Las Vegas and Adaptation in Cage’s incomprehensible body of work, there’s a Fire Birds. Even recently, that kind of extreme oscillation in quality has continued. On the one hand, Cage is still participating in widely celebrated works like Dream Scenario while also doubling down on his routinely memed on-screen persona in downright bizarre flicks such as Sympathy for the Devil.
Interestingly, if you think about it, it’s almost impossible to think of any direct predecessors to Cage’s style. However, that doesn’t mean that the American actor doesn’t have idols that he looks up to when he decides on an approach while signing onto a project. During an interview around the time his 2021 revenge drama Pig was released, the star opened up about the actors whose acting is not visible to the audience.
Heaping praise on the aristry of Martin Sheen and elaborating on his impact on Cage’s approach to his craft, he said: “I think one of the great natural screen performers in my estimation, who I think when you watch this person on camera, I don’t see any acting, it just feels like this person is being, and it’s a kind of brutal realism, and that person is Martin Sheen.”
Cage’s statements might seem counterintuitive at first, but one look at Sheen’s performances in masterpieces such as Badlands and Apocalypse Now, and you start to understand what he really means. The characters are embodied to such an extent that it’s impossible to separate Sheen from the fictional constructs, resulting in unforgettably immersive experiences that pull you in so seamlessly.
Adding, “There are film actors that have that level when they’re really in the zone, where you don’t see the acting, it just seems like they are so emotionally informed. [Gene] Hackman is another one in The Conversation. Yeah, so I think in that way, in terms of a style, that was a little bit on my mind. But the thing that’s interesting to me that emerges from this movie is the power of food, the emotional power of food.”
Although Cage tried to replicate that in Pig, we know from the very first second that this is a Nicolas Cage movie before anything else. And maybe that’s not a bad thing after all.
