You can't make your choices based on what critics think. You have to make your choices based on what's honest for you.
— Nicolas Cage
We do see Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat, but it's very rare to see the Chinese male actor in Hollywood movies, which is something I take great umbrage with. You know, my son is Asian. He may want to direct one day; he may want to be an actor like his father - and I want that to be open to him.
Celebrity is a word I take great umbrage with. I'm actively anti-celebrity.
There is a misperception, if you will, in critical response or even in Hollywood, that I can only do exaggerated characters. Or what they would call over-the-top performances. Well, this is completely false.
I do enjoy animated movies.
Disney has a great tradition of enchanting children and giving them something to behold.
It's amazing marrying someone who wants nothing to do with Hollywood.
The biggest problem for me was feeling that as I became more balanced and a better man that I wouldn't have the fire to create from.
I'm sticking my tongue out in scenes to try to make that work in 3D. I'm thinking I'll try to get my tongue all the way out to the second row of the audience.
All of my characters have a glint of madness.
I may be alone in this, but I do sense the power of film, in that movies have the ability to literally change people's minds. That's pretty powerful stuff when you consider that.
Look, I happen to still like really dark, dramatic, fractured characters.
How do you rebel in a family of rebels?
I don't want to just do independent movies and I don't want to just do adventure films. I enjoy both, and I think both are cogent.
I'm an enormous admirer of Christopher Lee. He's somebody, along with Vincent Price, who I celebrate, and I wanted my movies to show that celebration and that honoring of these great film stars that were unafraid to go into horror and Grand Guignol and the macabre.
I want to make all kinds of movies. I do want to make big movies that are a lot of fun to go to, but I also want to make movies that are going to stimulate some thought and maybe raise some awareness.
I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.
When I act, I hear it like music. In my head, I hear the dialogue like music.
I think it's no secret that I've tried to take chances in my career and also in my life, and I believe to not live in fear.
I invite the entire spectrum, shall we call it, of feeling. Because that is my greatest resource as a film actor. I need to be able to feel everything, which is why I refuse to go on any kind of medication. Not that I need to! But my point is, I wouldn't even explore that, because it would get in the way of my instrument.
I know there's been a lot that's been said about animated voice work, as though it's 'you can do this in your jeans and there's no camera and no pressure there. It's no big deal. It's easy.' The truth is, it's really a great test: how deep is your ability is to access your imagination?
I don't want a perfect character, I want a character who has, as strange as it sounds, some humanity, some flaws, some needs.
I care about the connection with the audience. Film is such a powerful medium. Movies can change the way people think.
At a young age, I was interested in comic books, which was really how I learnt to read. The name Cage came from a comic book character called Power Man.
I mean, I've acted professionally since I was 16.
Having been a father for 19 years I realise fatherhood has changed me.
I like fantasy. I like horror, science fiction because I can get avant-garde with those performances in those movies.
My mother was a dancer, so I like to use the body as part of the instrument of acting.
I hit the ground running, without a lot of training, so I had to do whatever I could do to survive as a professional, and if that meant being that character 24/7 and acting out, I was going to do that. I lived those characters, I brought them home with me.
And what I like about it is it makes me happy and I think it makes a lot of people happy to go to the movies and to not think about the problems of the day or the problems of tomorrow or the yesterday and just go on for the ride and have the fun of losing oneself in a fantasy.
I have eclectic tastes in the movies I want to do.
I do like to move and get physical in my movies.
I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.
There's a fine line between the Method actor and the schizophrenic.
One of my goals is to have a base near mainland China. I think Hong Kong would be a good match for me. I like being in Hong Kong.
I think the paparazzi might have chased me out of Los Angeles.
I never studied dance, but if you look at 'Wild At Heart,' my mother saw that movie and said, 'You are a dancer. Look at how you're moving: all that strange energy is like modern dance.'
The fact that 'Astro Boy' appealed to me as a boy in America was proof that the story and character transcend cultural stereotypes.
Mel Blanc is a hero because of what he could do with his voice for all the Looney Tunes, the Warner Brothers cartoons, to be the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig.
Actors have an opportunity to use storytelling as a way to solve pain.
I think what makes people fascinating is conflict, it's drama, it's the human condition. Nobody wants to watch perfection.
For me, acting was a way of taking destructive energy and doing something productive with it, and in that way it was quite a life saver.
I've always had a soft spot for comic books.
I came out of independent film, that's my roots.
As I got older, with my work, I became aware of the responsibility of film, and I feel one of the best ways I can apply myself as an actor, is to go beyond movie stardom and celebrity.
If I could have been a marine biologist I would have, but I didn't have that kind of intelligence. Numbers were never my strong point.
I'm the first to admit that I like going to, or my memories at least of going to Clint Eastwood movies or Charles Bronson or James Bond.
I would definitely return to Austria. They were all good experiences for me, but definitely Austria because there were some ancient Celtic, sacred sites that were in the forest that were quite beautiful.
I'm at the point now where I know I'm doing something right when a movie gets mixed reviews, because then I'm not in the box. I don't want to make it too easy for people and I don't want to make it too easy for myself. I want to try something unusual.
Hollywood didn't know if I was an actor or a nut or if I was this crazy character I was playing. I had developed an image of being a little bit unusual, different and wild.
