By Ben Spaeth
Photo: Entertainment Weekly – Source
Nicolas Cage is playing Nicolas Cage in an upcoming movie about Nicolas Cage. You read that very confusing right. On April 22, 2022 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent hits theaters. Nic Cage is getting his very own Being John Malkovich treatment. Except instead of people going inside Cage’s head, Cage will have to go inside a drug ring and take down a drug kingpin, Pedro Pascal who is not playing himself. But will Cage’s friendship with Pedro Pascal stop him from helping the CIA take him down? I guess we’ll have to see April 22. As Andy Samberg would say, “This has all the classic elements of a Nic Cage film.”
Cage has described his acting style as “Nouveau Shamanic,” German expressionist, and “western kabuki.” His style is certainly hard to define, but very easy to spot. Cage deliberately does not take a naturalist approach to acting which makes his style stand out when compared to most other mainstream screen actors. Cage has said in previous interviews that he likes taking on an eclectic selection of roles, so that the audience never knows what to expect from him. In one role he can be a silent, but stoic presence and in the next he can be manic and loud. Cage certainly has a love for what he does and is passionate about putting his best possible performance on the screen. Unfortunately, Cage has felt that his acting style is stifled by big budget films that often have executives who have previously tried to change certain elements of his performance. The man is a perfectionist at his craft. Sadly for us though, this likely means we will never see Cage steal the Declaration of Independence again in a third National Treasure movie.
As to how autobiographical The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is has yet to be seen, but the life of Nicolas Cage is a very interesting one. Cage has changed his name from Coppola to Cage, been married five times, bought a castle in Germany, bought a dinosaur skull, was accused of stealing a chihuahua, donated millions to charity, committed tax fraud, and was on the brink of bankruptcy after being one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. That’s a lot to squeeze into one life and that’s not even half of everything Nic Cage has done. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent picks up after all these events in Cage’s life. The hook of the movie is that Cage is so in need of money that he accepts a $1 million offer from superfan/drug kingpin Pedro Pascal to show up at his party.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent currently has a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes of 100%. The film also received praise after its premiere at SXSW. However, Cage has stated that he will never see this movie. Despite critics praising his performance, Cage said “it's just too much of a whacked-out trip for me to go to a movie theater and watch me play Tom Gormican's highly-neurotic, anxiety-ridden version of me.” Going on to say that the Nic Cage in the film is “not really me. I'm really quiet, meditative, [and] thoughtful. I'm not this neurotic, high-strung, anxiety-ridden guy all the time.”
Nonetheless, when The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent hits theaters I will certainly buy a ticket.