How Nicolas Cage inspired Pedro Pascal’s most infamous role
Having been around so long that he’s inspired the next generation of actors, Nicolas Cage has now reached a point in his career where he’s starring alongside them. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent starred the Academy Award winner as a fictionalised version of himself to gets recruited by the government to get the inside scoop on Pedro Pascal’s alleged crime lord, Javi Gutierrez, after accepting a million-dollar offer to appear at his birthday party.
It was hardly a stretch for Pascal to play a Cage superfan, considering the actor served as one of the biggest inspirations and heroes during his younger days. If anything, it was the ideal casting, considering the Game of Thrones veteran had spoken so highly of his eventual co-star on numerous occasions.
“I remember going to the movies with my father and seeing Peggy Sue Got Married. And he was doing something so interesting, he went from this high school reunion to back in time, with these like teeth, and hair, and voice in a higher octave,” Pascal explained. “It was this really theatrical, risky performance that seemed to work perfectly.”
Fast forward a quarter of a century, and not only was Pascal one of the most in-demand names in Hollywood, but he was recruited to star opposite Cage in a bizarre buddy comedy. The entire crux of his character is a lifelong obsession with the self-proclaimed ‘Nouveau Shamanic’ performer.
Before they’d even met, though, Pascal channelled one of Cage’s most deranged performances in the name of a crushingly disappointing comic book dud. Starring as Maxwell Lord in Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984, he was at least one of the bright spots of an otherwise turgid superhero blockbuster, not that it was noticeable he was seeking to echo the spirit of peak Cage Rage.
“I remember shooting a scene in 1984 and, in the instant, I was like, what kind of energy do I need here?” he told Entertainment Weekly. “And I remembered Nicolas Cage – before I ever met him before the thought of ever making Massive Talent existed – I remembered him jumping on the desk in Vampire’s Kiss, kind of torturing María Conchita Alonso.”
Pascal “remembered that scene and his energy” and tried to bring it into his performance, although not quite to the same level, considering Cage at a live cockroach and had hot yoghurt poured over his toes at various points during production. Nonetheless, he still wanted “a fraction of that kind of chaotic energy to make the scene that we were shooting that day work”.
It wouldn’t be unfair to suggest it wasn’t quite apparent on-screen that Pascal was trying to inject some Vampire’s Kiss into his work, but he at least deserves credit for trying something different.
