Nicolas Cage’s terrible decision to remove his teeth for a role: “I don’t know what I was doing”
In another life, Nicolas Cage probably would have been among the most famous method actors of his generation. Instead, he disavowed the practice very early on in favour of doing something else entirely.
Based on a fearless filmography defined by its dedication, commitment, and regular bursts of onscreen insanity, Cage leaves no stone unturned when it comes to getting into character. It sounds method enough on paper, but he opted to craft his own unique performative style from the ground up.
Taking an offbeat array of influences from across the arts, Cage cultivated his own ‘Nouveau Shamanic’ style, which is kind of like the method but with added madness. Even at the beginning of his career, when he was still best known for being Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew, he wasn’t afraid to push the boat out.
An early case in point was Alan Parker’s 1984 literary adaptation Birdy, in which Cage played Al Columbato opposite Matthew Modine’s title character. The latter returns from Vietnam, bearing the permanent psychological scars of serving on the front line, and ends up confined to a psychiatric institution.
Once the lifelong friends return from Vietnam, Cage’s Al recuperates in a local hospital, having suffered serious facial injuries in a helicopter crash during his military service. His face is swathed in bandages for a spell, and the actor decided that to mimic that pain, he needed to have his two front teeth pulled out.
When asked if it was something he’d ever consider doing again in the name of performance, the future Academy Award winner and A-lister answered in the negative. “I wouldn’t,” he confessed to David Sheff. “I didn’t need to pull my teeth out. Medically, I did; my baby teeth weren’t coming through, but I didn’t need to do it while making the movie.”
Naturally, that raised the question as to why he did it anyway, with Cage responding by placing realism at the forefront. “I thought it would be a way to connect with some kind of physical pain,” he explained. “I don’t know what I was doing. I found myself, at 19, in a demanding role without proper training.”
Was Cage’s tooth-pulling sacrifice worth it in the long run? Not really, even though Birdy – and his work as Al – received plenty of praise. It may have been an early showcase and a hint of the idiosyncratic icon he was destined to become, but it was also a massive box office bomb.
On a $12million budget, the well-received picture earned just $1.4m in ticket sales. Not only was Cage down two teeth, but the most prominent dramatic role in his filmography thus far had crashed and burned on the big screen, which may have hurt even more.
