The Nicolas Cage performance inspired by a ‘Friday the 13th’ sequel: “He’s specifically homaging”
Being predictably unpredictable is what made Nicolas Cage the actor he is, with the forefather of Nouveau Shamanism deciding that he was going to create his own bespoke method of performance that nobody had ever brought to the table before.
For many, Cage is the eccentric oddball who became more of a meme than a movie star, but for others, he’s one of the most influential thespians in generations. Everybody wants to be like Marlon Brando, but nobody could be anything like Cage no matter how hard they tried.
Constantly thinking outside of the box and going to frequently deranged lengths to get into the minds of his characters, there surely can’t be any other actor on the face of the planet who decided that having their toes slathered in hot yoghurt was the perfect preparation for an incoming sex scene.
That’s Cage in a nutshell, though, with the Academy Award winner and resurgent star currently in the midst of a hot streak that may well be the finest run of their entire career, always having viewed the job from a perspective nobody else had even considered.
He’s cited his pet crow Huginn, Kabuki theatre, German Expressionism, Jimmy Gagney, James Dean, Tex Avery cartoons, claymation sidekick Gumby, and even his own father as inspirations for various parts he’s played, so clearly, nothing is off-limits. However, even by Cage’s standards, a Friday the 13th sequel is bizarre.
In his defence, that one didn’t come directly from his own mind but that of his director. When figuring out the best way to approach protagonist Red Miller in the phantasmagorical and blood-soaked mindfuck Mandy, filmmaker Panos Cosmatos gave his leading man a highly specific point of reference to aid his performance.
“One of my favourite things in the film, I gave him Friday the 13th Part VII to watch, in light of his character’s last third of his arc,” he told Nick Allen. “I’m happy that there’s a very brief moment where he’s specifically homaging a thing that Jason does in the film.”
Whereas Jason Voorhees preferred a hockey mask and machete, Cage’s Red was a chainsaw kind of guy. When he was set to do battle with an assailant in Mandy who wields the exact same type of weaponry, he fully embraced the spirit of a shoddy slasher, which would have gone unnoticed by almost everyone.
“At the beginning of the chainsaw fight, when he’s trying to start his chainsaw, the other guy pulls out his bigger chainsaw,” Cosmatos explained. “He is just looking at the guy and his jaw is moving in a weird way, and it’s Jason’s rotting jaw that he’s evoking there.”
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood isn’t remembered by even the franchise’s most ardent supporters as one of its high points, but little could anyone have guessed that 20 years after the film’s 1988 release, the unkillable mass murderer and his decomposing face would be directly referenced by Cage in what was his best and most unhinged work in years.
