“That was the greatest piece of direction”: the filmmaker who changed everything for Nicolas Cage
There isn’t another actor on the planet quite like Nicolas Cage, but it took him a while to decide that the best way to make his mark on an industry his family was already woven so deeply into was by distancing himself from them entirely and then putting his own distinctive spin on the art of performance.
Deciding to get into the family business, Cage made his feature debut in the classic 1982 comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where he was credited under his real name, Nicolas Coppola. He was desperate to establish himself as a viable commodity, but the stench of nepotism didn’t help.
That’s fair enough because there are a lot of Coppolas, an ever-increasing number, in fact. Cinematic patriarch Francis Ford Coppola was the brother of Cage’s father, August Coppola, and their sister gained fame as Talia Shire. That’s without even mentioning Sofia, Roman, Christopher, Gia, or Jason Schwartzman, with the clan becoming synonymous with celluloid.
After dropping the weight around his neck and rebranding himself after his favourite comic book hero, Cage’s sophomore outing in front of the camera came in the teen rom-com Valley Girl. It was his first time onscreen without the Coppola name and his first leading role. It was a make-or-break moment for the aspiring star, and one pearl of wisdom from the film’s director, Martha Coolidge, changed everything.
Struggling with the pressure of shouldering the picture opposite Deborah Foreman, Martha Coolidge repeatedly told Cage that his character was “hurt but not defeated.” As he developed a habit of doing this in the years that followed, he took that advice several steps further and applied it to every setback he faced in life, which, by extension, made it the genesis point for the actor he wanted to be and ultimately became.
“Oh my god,” he reflected to The Guardian. “That was the greatest piece of direction I’ve ever received from a filmmaker. I’m so glad you mentioned Martha because I want to go on record as saying that without her, none of this would have happened. It was because of what she did with me that people knew who I was.”
Two of his next three pictures were helmed by his uncle, but after that, Cage never worked with Francis again. Instead, having become emboldened by Coolidge’s mantra of being constantly hurt but never overcome, he sought to challenge himself every time he took on a new role. It was the birth of Nicolas Cage, as everyone knows him: the eccentric maverick who never met a character he couldn’t put a bizarrely specific spin on.
Coolidge would have had no idea at the time, but in a way, she was directly responsible for the persona that gave rise to what might be the most memed actor of all time.
