Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994 TAG: 9403110026
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JEANNE WOLF AND SHEP MORGAN NEW YORK TIMES SYNDICATE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Off-screen the actor was thought of as eccentric. He almost always dressed in black, had an exotic bug collection and kept a shark in his home aquarium.
He slept by day, prowled at night and seemed to relish making outrageous statements in interviews.
Fortunately, this bizarre public image worked to Cage's advantage, helping him land the attention-getting, off-center roles that set him apart from the rest of Hollywood's young actors.
But now that image seems to be getting a make-over.
Cage, who actually chewed a live cockroach in "Vampire's Kiss" (1989) and wore one of his own snakeskin jackets to play a psychotic in David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" (1990), is making a startling career turnaround.
It began with the 1993 film "Honeymoon in Vegas" in which Cage took his first stab at being a conventional leading man.
The trend continues with "Guarding Tess," a comedy in which he portrays a straight-arrow Secret Service agent assigned to protect a former first lady (Shirley MacLaine). The film is scheduled to open nationwide today.
Sitting in a room in a New York hotel, wearing a simply cut black jacket and white shirt, Cage looks disarmingly normal. But there is still something intriguingly off-center about the grin he flashes as he talks about his determined plunge into the Hollywood mainstream.
"Actually, I guess I was a little nervous about becoming so straight on the screen because I was worried about whether I would still be interesting," he says.
"I knew I had an affinity for crazy kinds of roles and I wondered about whether I could do more ordinary people."
Doug Chesnic, the Secret Service agent who is forced by ex-first lady Tess Carlisle to become a de facto servant, is probably the most conventional character Cage has played.
"What's humorous about Doug," Cage says, "is how seriously he takes his job, considering how demeaning it really is. He's essentially a gofer with a gun.
"I mean, when he's in a supermarket with Tess he's getting price checks on the canned peas and handling it like it's `Mission Impossible.' Doug is a completely dedicated straight kind of guy."
Chesnic's penchant for going by the book is seriously challenged by Tess. The two become locked in a hilarious contest of one-upmanship, with Tess apparently determined to see just how many of Chesnic's buttons she can push before he loses control.
Chesnic, along with the other agents assigned to Tess, is forced to cater to such whims as breakfast in bed and a round of golf on the local course in the dead of winter.
While doing research for the film, Cage discovered that this crotchety, strong-willed former first lady character was more than a product of writer/director Hugh Wilson's imagination.
"I spoke with Secret Service agents assigned to wives of ex-presidents who've been called on to do some odd things," the actor says.
"I remember one told me about having to cook corned-beef stew for, I believe, Mamie Eisenhower. This guy had never even heard of corned-beef stew, but he cooked it anyway.
"Actually, I think Tess is a composite of a lot of former first ladies, with quite a bit of Bess Truman in there."
For Cage, the thought of working with MacLaine was almost as intimidating as the idea of being assigned to guard a famous political figure.
"I was very nervous to meet her, because I was a huge fan of hers," he says. "Shirley is a legend and I'd never worked with a legend before."
With a laugh, Cage says that MacLaine more than exceeded his expectations.
"She's a superpro, but she also has this tough side and, like Tess, she can unleash some very sharp-edged repartee which keeps you fighting to hold your own."
An example?
"I was talking to her about the love affair she had with Robert Mitchum," Cage says. "He was always one of my favorite actors, so I asked her what he was really like.
"And she said, `Oh, I just loved Bob's big body. He's kind of like Bill Clinton, you know, those same broad shoulders."'
Cage utters a groan of mock pain at what came next.
"Then she said, `You know, Nick, you're not my type. You work out too much. You're too skinny. You need to gain some weight.'
"It was all in fun," he says, smiling, "but Shirley loves to be a prankster and go Don Rickles on you. You have to be careful or she'll make mincemeat out of you."
Still, Cage had a good time making "Guarding Tess" and says he hopes to do more films in the same vein.
"I've decided that people respond better to me in comedies than all that quirky stuff I did in the past.
"It's funny, when I was a kid I used to like to make people laugh. I was in a very tough school and it became sort of a survival mechanism for me.
"But then I saw James Dean in `East of Eden' and I decided I wanted to be like him.
"I made a lot of angst-ridden pictures and found myself approaching bankruptcy. So I decided to go back to what came naturally to me - being funny rather than unconventional."
Born Nicolas Coppola, the youngest of three brothers, Cage grew up in Long Beach, Calif.
His childhood was pretty conventional, except for the fact that his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, was a famous film director.
That came in handy when young Nick decided to pursue an acting career. In fact, Cage made his film debut in Coppola's "Rumble Fish" (1983).
But he quickly discovered that having an uncle in the business had its down side: It made people skeptical about whether he could make it on his own.
So Nicolas changed his last name to Cage - and happily found he had no trouble landing roles. He soon had Hollywood talking about his performances as the disfigured Vietnam vet in "Birdy" (1984) and the weird baby-snatcher in "Raising Arizona" (1987).
"I think that angst, that drive I had in those days was fueled by a lot of inner anger, a sort of rebel rage," Cage says.
"My heroes were groups like The Who. I really liked the idea of having that outlaw image, that rock 'n' roll persona, that edge of being a wild man."
Cage shakes his head at the memory.
"I'm 30 now," he says. "People change as they get older. I sometimes wonder if I can still call back that intensity, that drive."
A major factor in the mellowing of Nicolas Cage has been fatherhood.
Cage admits he has become preoccupied with being a daddy to his 3-year-old son Weston, whose mother is model Christina Fulton.
Although unmarried, and living apart, the couple share parenting duties.
"I worry a lot about him," Cage says of his son. "In fact, I couldn't go see Robert Altman's `Short Cuts' because I know a little boy gets hit by a car and eventually dies.
by CNB