The method behind Nicolas Cage’s madness: “I don’t believe in the term over the top”
Nicolas Cage’s performances have been all over the emotional and physical map throughout his career. Contrary to what some may want to believe because of his frustrating late-career status as a meme generator, Cage has played almost as many subdued, nuanced, lived-in parts as he has the explosive, off-the-wall characterisations he is better known for.
In fact, he has always been honest that there is a distinct method to his madness, and he will calibrate his performance relative to the material he is working with. At his core, though, he simply doesn’t think about acting the same way most stars do.
In 2017, while Cage was promoting his new horror comedy Mom and Dad at the Toronto International Film Festival, a journalist asked him about some of his “over-the-top” choices in certain scenes. This was like a red flag to a bull for a guy who has long been accused of being too exaggerated and too crazy in certain movies, and Cage took the opportunity to outline part of the acting philosophy he has obeyed for the vast majority of his career.
“You show me where the top is, and I’ll let you know whether I’m over it or not,” Cage stated in no uncertain terms. “I design where the top is.”
In truth, the quote was very similar to something Cage once told CBS News’ Lee Cowan. “I don’t believe in the term ‘over the top.’ I believe in the term ‘outside of the box.’ Let’s take chances, let’s keep trying new things, and that’s how you reinvent yourself. And that’s how you stay fresh.”
While naturalism has been the driving force behind most screen acting since Marlon Brando revolutionised the form, Cage is a star who realises there is room for experimentation with performance style, as long as the role/movie calls for it.
When he announced that he had a name for his acting style – “nouveau shamanic” – it was easy for critics to make fun of him, but it actually makes perfect sense when you consider his approach to characters like Longlegs, Castor Troy, or HI McDunnough. If he’s playing a grotesque serial killer, a deranged terrorist, or a cartoon-like ex-convict, Cage can shoot for the moon in a way that wouldn’t be appropriate in other, more “realistic” roles.
In these circumstances, Cage doesn’t even want to consider that his work can be categorised as “acting”. Instead, he prefers to think of it as if he is fully inhabiting the character in question. “The process itself is about, ‘How do you augment your imagination in a healthy way so that you can believe you’re these characters?’ You don’t feel like you’re acting, you feel like you’re being.”
In this sense, the method to Cage’s madness is that he sees acting as a spiritual exercise that lets his imagination run riot. While in this space, he can pull in disparate influences that other stars would never think of, such as German Expressionism, Kabuki theatre, Tex Avery cartoons, and animals.
“I don’t even like the word acting anymore because it implies lying in some way,” Cage once mused. “I don’t act. I feel, and I imagine, and I channel.” And for the love of God, whatever you do, don’t accuse him of being over-the-top.
