Nicolas Cage won an Oscar for “Leaving Las Vegas.” Yet when it comes to his personal and professional lives, he sticks close to Sin City.
He lives there with wife Riko Shibata and daughter August – who turns 1 in September – plus has filmed several movies in Vegas, including his new psychological thriller “Sympathy for the Devil” (in theaters Friday and available to buy on Apple TV and on-demand platforms).
“I often talk about the genius loci of a place creatively and for some reason this part of the Mojave Desert has lent itself to some good inspiration in terms of performance and also the movies themselves,” Cage says.
The actor recalls being attracted to director Yuval Adler’s movie title, since “Sympathy for the Devil” is a “pretty famous” song Mick Jagger wrote with Keith Richards after reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita.” But Cage also jumped at the chance to play a “bizarre and operatic” unnamed mystery man who forces an expectant father (Joel Kinnaman) at gunpoint to take him on a strange and revelatory road trip “full of twists and turns that kept me guessing.”
Cage, who next stars in the action comedy “The Retirement Plan” (out Aug. 25), spoke with USA TODAY before the Screen Actors Guild strike about crooning a disco classic, his surprise Superman cameo in “The Flash” and his biggest goal before turning 60 in January.
Question: What inspired the look of The Passenger in “Sympathy for the Devil,” especially that fire-engine red hair?
Answer: Because of the title, I looked at Jagger’s movie “Performance.” Jagger was playing a rock star, James Fox was playing the gangster on the lam. He puts his hand in a bucket of paint in a car, and he washes his hands through his hair and creates this red hair disguise. And I thought in that split second, James Fox created the punk rock movement.
And also I was looking at different characters in demonology. I saw this one picture of a demon called Asmodeus, and he was covered in red. I texted it to the director. He goes, ‘There’s our guy,’ and I show up with red hair. At first, he was freaking out. Then he got into it. What’s remarkable is that choice changed the complete lighting of the movie, so now it’s a psychedelic picture.
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Similarly, what led to that scene where you’re singing “I Love the Nightlife” in a diner?
I had to spend $30,000 of my own money to (license) that song in the movie. The song to me was perfect for this situation. It was also kind of amusing in a really psychotic way. Plus, it’s a hilarious song. I hope Alicia Bridges isn’t too upset with the way I murdered it with my vocal performance. I do like her very much.
You work a lot – this year alone, you’re in five movies. How has having a young daughter affected that?
I have to reevaluate how many movies I’m going to be making and where I’m going to be going because of that. When I was doing all those movies back to back, Augie wasn’t in the picture, and now she is. There is going to have to be some sort of a change made.
Your “Superman Lives” movie was infamously scrapped in the ‘90s. So what was it like finally seeing yourself in the cape battling a giant spider in “The Flash”?
Well, I was glad I didn’t blink. For me, it was the feeling of being actualized. Even that look for that particular character, finally seeing it on screen, was satisfying. But as I said, it’s quick. If you really wanted to know what I was going do with that character, look at my performance in “City of Angels.”
I was supposed (to play) Clark Kent after that (in “Superman Lives”), and I was already developing this alien otherness playing this angel. That is a perfect example of the tonality you would’ve gotten for Kal-El and for Clark Kent: Clark would’ve been a little more amusing but Kal-El (had) the sensitivity and the goodness and the vulnerability and all those feelings that were kind of angelic and also terrifying.
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You have a big birthday coming up. What do you want to see or do before you turn 60?
I need to read more books. I’ve been sort of lagging in that department. I do need to read “Master and Margarita.” I’m in the middle of “Blood Meridian” by Cormac McCarthy, which is pretty disturbing. My God, “Sympathy for the Devil” has nothing on “Blood Meridian.” I just finished (Kem Nunn’s) “Tapping the Source.” So if I can get a book in a week before I have this horrific age of 60, yeah, I’d like that.
