THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 29, 1996 TAG: 9601270037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 167 lines
AS NICOLAS CAGE, clutching his new Golden Globe Award, came backstage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, a member of the press yelled, ``Oh, no! Nicolas Cage, of all people!''
Unaccustomed to being an ``establishment'' figure, one bearing something akin to the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, Cage was clearly taken aback. His image is more that of the unhinged eccentric who specializes in playing lowlife sleazeballs - edgy oddballs who live on society's outer limits.
He was the Elvis-worshiping petty criminal in ``Wild at Heart'' and the ex-con who responded to his wife's maternal needs by kidnapping a baby in ``Raising Arizona.'' For his role as a psychotic in ``Vampire's Kiss,'' he ate a real cockroach. A cult following finds his over-the-top portrayals as unpredictable as they are passionate.
Things have changed, in perception if not in substance, with a little film called ``Leaving Las Vegas.'' Cage plays Ben Sanderson, a failed Hollywood writer who burns his possessions and takes off for Las Vegas to drink himself to death. It should take him about four weeks. Somewhere on the downward spiral , he meets an equally depressed but lovable prostitute, who agrees to share his faults and even love him.
His character is another sullen misfit, but this time everyone - especially the critics - is taking Cage seriously. Besides the Golden Globe, he has received the Los Angeles and New York Film Critics Awards.
Not since Sally Field's ``Norma Rae'' has an actor gone into the Oscar race with such favorable odds.
``I'm being very Zen about it,'' Cage said about the Feb. 13 Oscar nominations. ``I'm not worried about Oscars. What I'm so encouraged about is the fact that my fellow actors are saying `good job.' That's enough. I love acting. Acting is my therapy. Acting is my expression, my release.''
Last September in Toronto, it was a different situation. Cage and his wife, actress Patricia Arquette, were at the Uptown Theater for the first screening of ``Leaving Las Vegas.''
United Artists was taking a chance by showing it at the Toronto Film Festival. Cage was uptight, grasping Arquette's hands during the more harrowing scenes and glancing around the theater, trying to gauge the audience's response. There was stony silence.
At the conclusion, the film received polite, but highly respectful applause. Then, the audience rose and quietly filed out. Anyone outside the theater might have thought it was a funeral procession.
Things livened up considerably at the post-screening party, held at a grunge bar called The Velvet Underground. Cage, co-star Elisabeth Shue and director Mike Figgis were in the middle of the action. Still, there were doubts if a little film, shot in just 27 days and in 16mm, would even get released.
Four months later, the picture is decidedly different.
``Leaving Las Vegas'' is the Cinderella story of the year. The New York and Los Angeles critics' associations named it best picture. Cage and Shue have received accolades. Now, it only remains to see whether the Oscar voters will go along with this dark treatise on alcoholism.
``It just goes to show that I should go by my instincts,'' said Cage, the nephew of Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola. ``I feel more encouraged than ever to take chances. Everyone advised me not to do this film.
``But the book stayed with me. I thought it was a great book, and, after all, my decision wasn't about money. All of us took less than our usual salary to do this. To me, it was a chance to play a completely loose and liberated man. I mean, here is a man who was not afraid of death. A man who is not afraid to die can really do anything. He is free.''
Director Figgis discovered ``Leaving Las Vegas'' three years ago at a second-hand book store and managed to track down the author, John O'Brien. He told Figgis that the novel's alcoholic writer was based on his life. Two weeks before the movie went into production, O'Brien committed suicide.
``I wish O'Brien was here today to see the acclaim the film is getting,'' Cage said. ``I wish he was here, too, because I'd just like to talk to him. He left no suicide note. The book WAS his suicide note.''
In preparation for the role, Cage watched, and rewatched, a number of famous movie alcoholics: Ray Milland in ``The Lost Weekend,'' Albert Finney in ``Under The Volcano,'' Dudley Moore in ``Arthur'' and Jack Lemmon in ``Days of Wine and Roses.''
``I liked Finney's performance the best,'' said Cage, 32. ``He was so natural. I was also greatly impressed by Dudley. `Arthur' is not a great movie, but Dudley captured the feeling of a drunk who thinks he's being charming, when he's, really, just being drunk. I wanted to get that.''
He added he took ``Leaving Las Vegas'' because he had just come off what he calls his ``Sunshine Triology'' - ``It Could Happen to You,'' ``Honeymoon in Vegas'' and ``Guarding Tess.''
``I had wanted to really do something light, something to prove I could do comedy,'' Cage said. ``Then, I did three. I wanted to return to something really dark. This was perfect. I never want to do the same type thing in a row. I like to keep people guessing, particularly myself.''
This is the same Nicolas Cage who once tattooed a lizard on his back and kept a pet shark in his apartment. He and Johnny Depp once hung from the top floor of a Beverly Hills shopping center until the police came to get them down.
``That was a young, macho, thing,'' he said. ``We were just challenging each other as to which one would hang there the longest. I've calmed down a lot now. All those things I did were because of youth. The change came when I became a father. (He has a 5-year-old son from a previous relationship.) Suddenly, I realized I live for someone other than myself.''
He and Arquette married last year. It is the first marriage for both. They met at a delicatessen five years ago, dated briefly and then parted.
``Then, one day, she called and proposed to me,'' Cage said. ``Yes, you heard me right, she proposed to me. Is anyone going to turn down a girl like that? The strange thing was that I had thought of her constantly in the past five years and I kept thinking we'd get back together someday.
``Marriage makes all the difference. It teaches you responsibility right away, but it's worth it.''
Cage was born Nicholas Coppola, the youngest of three boys, in Long Beach, Calif. His father, August, was a professor of comparative literature. His mother, Joy Vogelsang, a former modern dancer, was institutionalized after a mental breakdown.
His first experience at acting came at age 10, when he made himself up as a tough guy and confronted the bullies on his school bus.
``I put on cowboy boots and dark eyeglasses and told these guys I was Nickie's cousin and if they messed with him again, I'd beat the hell out of them,'' Cage said. ``They believed it. Then, I knew I could pull off impersonating somebody.''
Seeing James Dean in ``East of Eden'' was his first real impetus. ``The scene when he gives the money to his father and his father refuses to take it, and he cries . . . that's when I knew I wanted to be an actor, like him.''
He attended Beverly Hills High School and got a role in ``Oklahoma,'' but when he he wasn't cast in ``West Side Story,'' he quit school. He was in the 11th grade, but later got his diploma.
``Classes were always a bore to me. I wanted to learn things on my own, not by presentations,'' he said. ``I was a loudmouth and a clown. It came as a surprise to me, later, that I could be serious and still get attention.''
Cage was 17, studying at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, when he got a nonspeaking part in ``Fast Times at Ridgemont High.'' He got his first real notice in ``Rumble Fish,'' directed by his uncle. He received raves as a facially disfigured Vietnam veteran in ``Birdy.''
Since then, it's been one offbeat, inventive role after another. David Lynch, who directed ``Wild at Heart,'' once called him ``the jazz musician of actors. He's looking for complicated notes in his acting. And if you don't channel him or ride herd on him, it could become frightening music.''
Cage admits that he likes spontaneity, and doesn't like rehearsals.
``Too much rehearsal can ruin a performance,'' he said. ``That's one thing I liked about `Leaving Las Vegas.' It was done so quickly, and with that tiny, 16mm camera. That camera is wonderful for actors. You hardly know it's there.''
Although his tuxedo looked a bit small, Cage vowed that he will be in the audience on Oscar night.
``My weight has really been fluctuating from movie to movie,'' he said. ``I got all pumped up to play Little Junior in `Kiss of Death.' Then, for `Leaving Las Vegas,' I wanted to look very bloated, just like a real drunk. I ate big cheeseburgers every day.''
As the Oscar countdown continues, Cage is back at work with Sean Connery on ``The Rock,'' an action film about a prison breakout.
``It'll be a popcorn movie,'' he vowed. ``Something entirely different.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
20TH CENTURY FOX
KISS OF DEATH
UNITED ARTISTS
LEAVING LAS VEGAS
20TH CENTURY FOX
RAISING ARIZONA
MGM PICTURES
MOONSTRUCK
UNITED ARTISTS
Ben (Cage) and Sera (Elizabeth Shue) are drawn together in ``Leaving
Las Vegas.''
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB