Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage
Cage posing for photos with fans on the set of National Treasure: Book of Secrets at the University of Maryland, November 2006
Born	Nicholas Kim Coppola
Other names	Nikky Cage
Occupation(s)	Film actor, producer
Years active	1982–present
Spouse(s)	Patricia Arquette (1995–2001) Lisa Marie Presley (2002–2004) Alice Kim (2005–present)

Nicolas Cage likes men(born Nicholas Kim Coppola on January 7, 1964) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. He has also worked as a director and producer, through his production company Saturn Films. Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award as Best Actor in a Leading Role, winning the award for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas.

Early life

Cage was born in Long Beach, California. His father, August Coppola, is a professor of literature, while Cage's mother, Joy Vogelsang, is a dancer and choreographer; the two divorced in 1976. His mother suffered from chronic depression. Cage's mother is of German descent and his father is Italian American, with his paternal grandparents being Carmine Coppola and Italia Pennino, an actress. Through his father, Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the cousin of directors Roman Coppola, and Sofia Coppola and actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman. Cage's two brothers are Christopher Coppola, a director, and Marc "The Cope" Coppola, a New York radio personality. Cage was born into a Roman Catholic household and remains Catholic to this day.

Cage, who attended and dropped out of Beverly Hills High School (the same high school as fellow entertainers Albert Brooks, Angelina Jolie, Lenny Kravitz, Slash, Rob Reiner, Bonnie Franklin and David Schwimmer), aspired to act from an early age. His first (non-cinematic) acting experience was in a school production of Golden Boy. He is also good friends with fellow actor Johnny Depp, whom he advised to get into acting.

Career

In order to avoid the appearance of nepotism as the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, he changed his name from Nicholas Coppola to Nicolas Cage early in his career. The assumed surname is inspired by Marvel Comics character Luke Cage, a streetwise superhero. Since his feature film debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, in which he had a minute role opposite Sean Penn, Cage has appeared in a wide range of films, both mainstream and offbeat. He even wished for the role of Dallas Winston in his uncle's film The Outsiders, based on S.E. Hinton's novel, but lost to Matt Dillon.

He has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, and won once, for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. His other nomination was for playing real-life screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and Kaufman's fictional twin Donald in Adaptation.. Despite these successes, most of his lower-profile films have performed poorly at the box office compared with his more mainstream, action-filled efforts. In 2005, for example, two offbeat, non-mainstream films he headlined, Lord of War and The Weather Man, failed to find a significant audience despite good reviews for his acting and nationwide releases for both films. Poor reviews for The Wicker Man preceded a flop, but the critically panned Ghost Rider (2007) was a significant hit, earning more than $45 million during its opening weekend (landing in the top spot) and over $208 million worldwide through the weekend ending on 25 March 2007. More recently he starred in 2007's Next, which shares the concept of a glimpse into an alternate time track with The Family Man (2000). The suspense thriller 8mm (1999) was not a box office success, but is now consider a cult film and is one of Cage's most underrated roles.

Nicolas Cage during filming of National Treasure: Book of Secrets in March 2007.

Most of the actor's financial successes have come from his forays into the action-adventure genre. In his second-highest grossing film to date, National Treasure, he plays an eccentric historian who goes on a dangerous adventure to find treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States. Other action hits include The Rock, in which Cage plays a young FBI chemical weapons expert who infiltrates Alcatraz Island in hopes of neutralizing a terrorist threat, Face/Off, a John Woo film where he plays both a hero and a villain, and World Trade Center, director Oliver Stone's film regarding the September 11, 2001 attacks. He had a small but notable role as the Chinese criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu in Rob Zombie's fake trailer Werewolf Women of the S.S. from the B-movie double feature Grindhouse.

In recent years, Cage has experimented in other fields besides acting. He made his directorial debut with Sonny, a low-budget drama starring James Franco as a male prostitute whose mother (Brenda Blethyn) serves as his pimp. Cage had a small role in the grim film, which received poor reviews and a short run in a limited number of theatres.

Cage's producing career included Shadow of the Vampire, the first film from Saturn Films, a company he founded with partner Jeff Levine. It was nominated for an Academy Award. He also produced The Life of David Gale, a death penalty-themed thriller with Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet.

In early December 2006, Cage announced at the Bahamas International Film Festival that he planned to curtail his future acting endeavors in order to pursue other interests. Cage said, "I feel I've made a lot of movies already and I want to start exploring other opportunities that I can apply myself to, whether it's writing or other interests that I may develop". Cage is listed as the executive producer of the The Dresden Files on the Sci-Fi Channel.

In November 2007, Cage was spotted backstage at a Ring of Honor wrestling show in New York City researching his role for the upcoming movie "The Wrestler".

Cage will star in a sci-fi thriller titled Knowing directed by Alex Proyas, which was to begin production on March 17 2008, in Melbourne, Australia. He will play a teacher who examines the contents of a time capsule unearthed at his son's elementary school. Startling predictions found inside the capsule that have already come true lead him to believe the world is going to end at the close of the week, and that he and his son are somehow involved in the destruction.

Personal life

In his early 20s, he dated actress Elizabeth Daily for two years, and was later involved with Uma Thurman. In 1988, Cage began dating Christina Fulton, mother of their son, Weston Coppola Cage (b. 26 December, 1990); Weston appeared in Cage's film Lord of War as Vladimir, a young Ukrainian mechanic who quickly disarms a Mil Mi-24 helicopter. Weston is also a devoted fan of heavy metal and on April 16, 2008, he introduced the symphonic black metal band Dimmu Borgir before they played a show at The Grove in Anaheim, California.

Cage has been married three times. His first wife was Patricia Arquette (married on April 8, 1995 – divorce finalized May 18, 2001). Cage proposed to her on the day he met her in the early 80s. Arquette thought he was strange, but played along with his antics by creating a list of things Cage would have to do to "win her hand", including obtaining the autograph of reclusive author J.D. Salinger. However, when he seriously started working through the list of demands, Arquette became scared and avoided him. They met again many years later and went on to marry. Lisa Marie Presley (married on August 10, 2002 and separated after four months in December 2002; their divorce was finalized on May 16, 2004) — the daughter of Elvis Presley, of whom Cage is a fan and based his performance in Wild at Heart on. He later said they shouldn't have been married in the first place. Alice Kim, a former waitress who previously worked at the Los Angeles restaurant Kabuki, met Cage at Los Angeles based Korean Nightclub, Le Privé. She is mother to his son, Kal-El (born October 3, 2005). She had a minor role in the 2007 movie Next which he produced. They were married at a private ranch in Northern California on July 30 2004.

Cage had a Malibu home where he and Alice lived, but in 2004 he bought a property on Paradise Island, Bahamas. In 2005, he sold his Malibu home for $10 million. In May 2006, he bought a 40-acre island in the Exuma archipelago, some 85 miles southeast of Nassau and close to a similar island owned by Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.

On July 19, 2006, Cage bought the medieval castle of Schloss Neidstein (see de:Schloss Neidstein) in the Oberpfalz region in Germany. His grandmother was German, living in Cochem an der Mosel.

In August 2007, Cage purchased a home in Middletown, Rhode Island. The 24,000-square foot, brick-and-stone country manor, on 26 secluded acres, has 12 bedrooms, 10 full bathrooms and sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean from its perch bordering the Norman Bird Sanctuary. The estate is called the "Grey Craig." The sale ranks among the state’s most expensive residential purchases, eclipsed by the $17.15 million sale last December of the Miramar mansion on Bellevue Avenue in Newport. Also in 2007, the actor purchased Midford Castle in Somerset, England.

The name of his son, Kal El, comes from the Superman comic books. Kal El is Superman's birthname on the planet Krypton. He was once attached to play Superman in a film to be directed by Tim Burton.

Nicolas was director Sam Raimi's first choice to play Norman Osborn/Green Goblin in the movie Spider-Man. He has even created a comic book, with his son Weston, called Voodoo Child, which is published by Virgin Comics.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	U.S. Box Office Gross	Worldwide Box Office Gross
1981	Best Of Times	Nicholas	$15,062,351
1982	Fast Times at Ridgemont High	Brad's Bud	$27,092,880
1983	The Outsiders	cameo in rumble scene	$25,600,000
	Valley Girl	Randy	$17,343,596
	Rumble Fish	Smokey	$2,494,480
1984	Racing with the Moon	Nicky and Bud	$6,045,647
	The Cotton Club	Vincent Dwyer	$25,928,721
	Birdy	Sergeant Al Columbato	$1,455,045
1986	The Boy in Blue	Ned Hanlan	$275,000
	Peggy Sue Got Married	Charlie Bodell	$41,382,841
1987	Raising Arizona	H. I. McDunnough	$22,847,564
	Moonstruck	Ronny Cammareri	$80,640,528
1988	Never on Tuesday	Man In Red Sports Car	N/A
1989	Vampire's Kiss	Peter Leow	$725,131
1990	Tempo di uccidere	Enrico Silvestri	N/A
	Fire Birds (Also known as Wings of the Apache)	Jake Preston	$14,760,451
	Wild at Heart	Sailor	$14,560,247
	Zandalee	Johnny	N/A
1992	Honeymoon in Vegas	Jack Singer	$35,208,854
1993	Amos & Andrew	Amos Odell	$9,745,803
	Deadfall	Eddie	$18,369
1994	A Century of Cinema		N/A
	Red Rock West	Michael Williams	$2,502,551
	Guarding Tess	Doug Chesnic	$27,058,304
	It Could Happen to You	Charlie Lang	$37,939,757
	Trapped in Paradise	Bill Firpo	$6,017,509
1995	Kiss of Death	Little Junior Brown	$14,942,422
	Leaving Las Vegas	Ben Sanderson	$32,029,928
1996	The Rock	Dr. Stanley Goodspeed	$134,069,511
1997	Con Air	Cameron Poe	$101,117,573
	Face/Off	Castor Troy/Sean Archer	$112,276,146
1998	City of Angels	Seth	$78,685,114
	Snake Eyes	Rick Santoro	$55,591,407
1999	8mm	Tom Welles	$36,663,315
	Bringing Out the Dead	Frank Pierce	$16,797,191
2000	Gone in Sixty Seconds	Randall "Memphis" Raines	$103,748,921	$242,901,103
	The Family Man	Jack Campbell	$75,793,305
	Welcome to Hollywood	Himself	N/A
2001	Italian Soldiers	Himself	N/A
	Captain Corelli's Mandolin	Captain Antonio Corelli	$25,543,895
	Christmas Carol: The Movie	Jacob Marley (Voice)	N/A
2002	Windtalkers	Sgt. Joe Enders	$40,914,068
	Adaptation.	Charlie and Donald Kaufman	$22,498,520
	Sonny	Acid Yellow (Also director)	$30,005
2003	Matchstick Men	Roy Waller	$36,906,460
2004	National Treasure	Ben Gates	$173,008,894	$347,512,149
2005	Lord of War	Yuri Orlov	$24,149,632
	The Weather Man	David Spritz	$12,482,480
2006	The Ant Bully	Zoc (Voice)	$28,142,535
	The Wicker Man	Edward Malus	$23,649,127
	World Trade Center	John McLoughlin	$70,278,893	$162,970,240
2007	Ghost Rider	Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze)	$115,802,596	$228,738,393
	Grindhouse	Dr. Fu Manchu - segment Werewolf Women of the S.S.	$25,031,037
	Next	Cris Johnson	$28,149,968	$64,713,174
	National Treasure: Book of Secrets	Ben Gates	$247,216,391	$457,346,486
2008	Bangkok Dangerous	Joe	release: August 22, 2008
2009	G-Force	Speckles (voice)	post-production/release: July 24, 2009
	Knowing	Ted Myles	post-production
	Astro Boy	Dr.Tenma (voice)	filming
	Bad Lieutenant	A Cop	filming
	Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion	?	pre-production

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See also

• Coppola family tree

External links

• Nicolas Cage at AllMovie
• World Trade Center Interview with Nicolas Cage From IGN FilmForce
• Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider video interview with stv.tv/movies