Interesting facts about Nicolas Cage

nicolas cage

Nicolas Cage is an American actor, director and producer.

He was born on January 7, 1964 in Long Beach, California.

Born Nicolas Kim Coppola, he changed his name early in his career to Nicholas Cage to avoid the appearance of nepotism as the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola.

His father, August Coppola, was a professor of literature while his mother, Joy Vogelsang, was a dancer and choreographer.

Cage has two older brothers, Marc and Christopher.

He was raised in a Catholic family.

Cage is of Italian (father) and Polish, German, and English (mother) descent.

He attended Beverly Hills High School, which is known for its many alumni who became entertainers.

Cage dropped out of Beverly Hills High School to pursue an acting career, making his debut on television in 1981.

He then landed a role in the teenage comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) followed by his firs leading role as a punk rocker in Valley Girl (1983).

valley girl

In 1983, he appeared in his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish.

In 1984 Cage, by then a strong proponent of the Stanislavsky method of acting, appeared in Coppola’s The Cotton Club as well as in Racing with the Moon and Birdy.

In 1986, he starred in comedy-drama film opposite Kathleen Turner titled, Peggy Sue Got Married. This was once again directed by Francis Ford Coppola and the film became a huge-hit at the box office.

This was followed by the Coen Brothers’ comedy Raising Arizona (1987), Moonstruck (1987, starring Cher), David Lynch’s bizarre Wild at Heart (1990), Vampire’s Kiss (1992) and the comedy Honeymoon in Vegas (1992).

Cage earned critical acclaim with his performance as a self-destructive alcoholic writer in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). The role won him multiple awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award.

leaving las vegas

He went on to star in a series of large-budget explosive-laden films that were hits at the box office. In The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), and Face/Off (1997), he appeared opposite such actors as Sean Connery, John Cusack, and John Travolta, respectively.

In 1998, he starred in the romantic City of Angels with Meg Ryan. The film is a loose remake of Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire.

After returning to the action genre with the poorly-rated 8MM and headlining Martin Scorsese’s dark Bringing Out the Dead in 1999, Cage reportedly received a $20 million paycheck for the action extravaganza Gone in 60 Seconds, costarring Angelina Jolie.

gone in 60 seconds

In 2000, Cage starred in the romantic comedy-drama The Family Man.

In 2001, he starred in the World War II-era epic Captain Corelli’s Mandolin . He learned to play the mandolin from scratch for the part.

In 2002, Cage appeared in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation, playing twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman, and was again nominated for an Academy Award. That same year he made his directorial debut with Sonny, a film he also produced.

Cage starred in director Jon Turteltaub’s 2004 blockbuster National Treasure, playing an eccentric historian who goes on a dangerous adventure to find treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States.

national treasure

In 2005, Cage starred in the crime drama war film Lord of War and in the comedy-drama The Weather Man.

In 2006, he appeared in World Trade Center, Oliver Stone’s film about the September 11 attacks. That same year, he appeared in the horror film, The Wicker Man, which was a remake of the British classic of the same name.

In 2007, Cage starred, in the supernatural horror superhero film Ghost Rider and the sequel, National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

ghost rider

In 2008, he appeared as Joe, a contract killer who undergoes a change of heart while on a work outing in Bangkok, in the film Bangkok Dangerous.

In 2009, Cage took on roles as an astrophysicist in the science-fiction thriller Knowing and a police detective struggling with drug and gambling addictions in Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

Cage’s subsequent films include Kick-Ass (2010), an action comedy about an ordinary teenager who dreams of becoming a superhero; The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2011), an action fantasy about a sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan, fighting against the forces of evil; and Season of the Witch (2011), an action-adventure film set in medieval Europe.

In 2012, Cage reprised his role in Ghost Rider’s sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

He voiced the character Grug Crood in the animated film The Croods, which was released in 2013.

His atypically subdued work in Joe (2013), in which he played a former criminal who takes a protective interest in one of his young employees, was widely acclaimed.

joe

Cage then assumed the role of an airline pilot in Left Behind (2014), an adaptation of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s highly successful novel (1995) about the Rapture, and in Oliver Stone’s Snowden (2016), he was cast as a former intelligence officer.

In 2016 and 2017 he starred in a number of films including, USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, Army of One, Arsenal, Vengeance: A Love Story, Inconceivable, Mom and Dad, The Humanity Bureau, Looking Glass, and Between Worlds.

Nicolas Cage has an estimated net worth of $25 million.

nicolas-cage-2

In 1988, Cage began dating actress Christina Fulton, who later bore their son, Weston Coppola Cage (born December 26, 1990).

Cage has been married three times.

His first wife was actress Patricia Arquette (married in April 1995, divorce finalized in 2001).

Cage’s second marriage was to singer and songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley. Presley and Cage married on August 10, 2002 and filed for divorce on November 25, 2002, a divorce which was finalized on May 16, 2004. The divorce proceeding was longer than the marriage.

Cage’s third wife was Alice Kim (born December 27, 1983), a former waitress who previously worked at the Los Angeles restaurant Kabuki and at the Los Angeles-based Korean nightclub, Le Privé. She gave birth to their son, Kal-El, (after Superman’s birth name) on October 3, 2005. They were married at a private ranch in Northern California on July 30, 2004. The couple separated in January 2016.

Cage has been called one of the most generous stars in Hollywood. He donated $2 million to Amnesty International for them to use to offer rehabilitation shelters, medical services and psychological and reintegration services to some of the 300,000 children forced to fight in conflicts across the world.

nicolas-cage-3

In 2009 Cage was named Global Citizen of the Year by the United Nations for his humanitarian efforts, notably his involvement in creating a fund for former child soldiers.

In May 2001, Cage was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts by California State University, Fullerton.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on July 31, 1998.

nicolas cage star hollywood walk of fame

Nicolas Cage was once known as one of the highest-paid actors of all time, making over $150 million between 1996 and 2011.

His lavish purchases included luxury yachts, 30 motorcycles, 50 cars, a private jet and 15 estate homes around the world.

Cage bought the sprawling Gray Craig estate in Middletown for $15.7 million, a purchase price that ranks among the highest ever for a home in Rhode Island.

Cage purchased a home on the former property of John Wayne in Newport Beach, CA, for a record-setting $24 million.

The historic LaLurie House [photo below] on the corner of Royal and Gov. Nicholls St. in New Orleans, which Cage bought for $3,450,000 in 2007, is reputed to be haunted by the many slaves tortured and killed by Delphine LaLurie in the 1830s.

lalurie house

Cage, an avid comic book fan, auctioned a collection of 400 vintage comics through Heritage Auctions for over $1.6 million in 2002.

In November 2011, Cage sold his Action Comics 1 in an online auction for a record-breaking $2.16 million (the previous record being $1.5 million), to assist paying his tax liens and other debts. Cage purchased the comic in 1997 for $110,000.

Stated that the reason he owned so many pieces of property in the past — including multiple castles, mansions, and an island — was to protect his money without buying stock or relying on a bank,
believing that real estate was the most trustworthy way to accomplish this. However, after the real estate bubble collapsed, he sold most of his property at a loss and rescinded on his belief. He now
owns a modest amount of property: a house in Las Vegas near his friends and a small cottage near Glastonbury, England.

He named his five favorite films as East of Eden (1955), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Wizard of Oz (1939).

On Reddit, Cage has an entire community devoted to him called “One True God.”.