Nicolas
Cage has become a cult figure and has also found critical and box
office success. This dude has made some great flicks including WILD
AT HEART (my personal favorite), LEAVING LAS VEGAS and RAISING
ARIZONA. And now he takes on a classic Marvel Comic character which
is something he’s wanted to do for a long time. I was a little
unsure of what to expect with him in this role, but after getting a
glimpse of GHOST
RIDER, I feel confident that the quirkiness he tends
to add will work very well for Johnny Blaze.
And
lucky for us, the dude is a great guy. He is very open and has a
positive out look on this film. He also spoke well of the recent
SUPERMAN RETURNS; not the movie he would have made, but he
liked the nostalgia of it. It’s great seeing him take on Ghost
Rider. His excitement for the project and his love of his work make
for an interesting conversation.
Nicolas
Cage
Everyone
knows that you love this genre, comic books, obviously since your
son’s name is Kal-El. Then you’re doing this movie. How much of the
tone did you set for this project?
I
was with the project when Steve Norrington was still attached to it
and that was a much darker interpretation. David Goyer wrote that
script and it was a good script, and I’m sure that Norrington
would’ve done an amazing job, but I think that when Mark [Steven
Johnson] came onboard and he wrote this version I think that it
opened up the character to a wider audience. I wanted the kids to go
see the movie. So, yeah, there are some scary moments in it, but
more scary like a 1950’s Vincent Price B-movie which is fun. I
didn’t want them to be too scared.
So,
the spirit of it is that I wanted to be very playful. There’s a lot
of humor in the movie. This character is absurd. He’s an absurdist
character and I think that’s a good thing because that gives me a
chance to bring comedy to it as well. He’s not a chain smoking, hard
drinking bad ass. What I wanted to contribute was that Johnny was
trying to keep the devil away because he really is in trouble with
the devil. So if that’s the case then why bring him in. So he’s
trying to deflect and stay relaxed by listening to Karen Carpenter
and eating jelly beans out of a martini glass and just trying to
stay calm because he knows at any moment it can creep up on
him.
Every
Marvel character has a theme. Do you think Ghost Rider’s theme is
fighting personal demons?
Yeah.
That’s what is really exciting about it. In a way I could argue that
the responsibility here is bigger than even the responsibility that
I had with
WORLD
TRADE
CENTER
. You could pick or chose whether or not you could take the kids to
that film, but in this case the kids are going to want to go see
GHOST RIDER and their minds are so impressionable. So what I wanted
to make clear was that no matter how much trouble you get into you
can always take a negative and turn it into a positive.
That’s
the spirit of Johnny Blaze. He’s a man who’s dealing with the worst
kind of trouble. His soul has been abducted by the devil. I mean,
that’s as big as it gets and yet he’s figuring out a way to turn it
around and turn it into something positive. I was thinking that with
kids who might be going to the principal’s office and they know that
they’re in a world of trouble they can find some way to make the
best out of it and do something good from it no matter how bad it
gets.
Aside
from the superheroes to think about, a lot of Marvel characters are
monsters. Were you into the monster books?
Yeah.
Those were my favorites. I don’t know why, but I just gravitated
towards the monsters. I like The Hulk and I liked Ghost Rider the
best. That’s really where I got into reading. I just thought that it
was such an exciting and complicated universe. I didn’t know how
something so scary could also be good. That appealed to my own
complicated way of seeing things and made it unique. Even when I
became a film actor I’m always gravitating towards characters that
are grey. They’re not just black or white. They’re beleaguered and
yet they’re trying to do something good with whatever the trouble
is.
Can
you talk about your first experience with GHOST RIDER, when you
first happened on it?
Yeah.
I was living in Long Beach, California and I was about seven years
old and I went around the corner to the market in the neighborhood
and I saw it on the stand and there was this flaming skull and it
was really comfortable. It was the first one. He was on the bike and
he was coming right at you. I bought it and I took it home and I
remember just staring at the cover in my room by myself for like
hours. My older brother was like, ‘What’s the matter with Nicolas?
He’s been staring at this comic book for hours.’ I don’t know why,
but I just thought that it was trippy and scary and cool. It
appealed to me.
Did
you stick with it through the ’90’s when the character was
resurrected and gave it a whole new look and stuff?
I
did not. No, I didn’t. Mark Steven Johnson did though. He was really
aware of all of the different versions of the character. I was
really about the ’70’s character that I read as a boy. That’s what
had stayed with me. I really like the iconography, the flaming skull
and the leather jacket. That’s the coolest image of all. I knew that
when technology got to a level where it could become visually
palpable that ‘Ghost Rider’ would translate really beautifully to
film.
What
was your initial reaction when you saw the final cut of this with
all the CG inserted?
I
was thrilled. I thought that Kevin Mack did a brilliant job and his
whole team as well. It could’ve been really goofy, but instead it’s
gorgeous. I think that what he did with the fire, which we all know
is the hardest thing to create with digital FX, is excellent because
it’s more real, and yet it’s more than real. It’s abstract and
larger than life. Then to make a skull expressive is also difficult
because there are no lips to move with. So you have to find ways of
also making that expressive and he did a great job with that.
Mark
said that was actually your skull they used for the CG. How was
that?
[Laughing]
Yeah. They had to do it digitally. They put the censors on me and
they graphed my skull somehow with x-rays or whatever. I don’t know
how they do it really, but that’s me which is kind of weird.
How
long did that take them to do? How long did you have to be still for
while they scanned you?
Well,
you have to be still for a couple of hours and they have to scan the
whole thing and get it.
How
was it doing some of the scenes you did with a green hood and the
green screen stuff?
There’s
no sort of way around doing that without feeling silly. It’s silly.
It just is.
Did
you hold onto your original Ghost Rider comic books?
I
still have them, yeah. I kept those. I framed them and have them in
a certain room in my house because I knew that this was somehow
going to happen. So I want to hold onto those.
Have
you shown them to your son at all?
Oh,
yeah, my oldest son. My youngest son hasn’t seen it yet.
Was
going to work on this film different from all the other films you’ve
done because of your love for this character?
It
was because it was new. It’s no secret that I’ve been trying to get
involved in a comic book film for a while and for whatever reason it
just kept not coming together and in this case it did. So this was
the one that was meant to be. So I was really excited that it was
this one because this one was personal for me. I gravitated towards
Ghost Rider as a child and The Hulk. So I was thrilled to be doing
it. Plus, I grew up watching those Vincent Price monster movies and
I really loved the whole “Monster Magazine” stuff that was out
there back in the ’70’s and I wanted to bring that flavor to the
movie as well, where I would get really excited that I was making a
monster movie. I hadn’t done that before. It was something that was
funny and scary.
In
one of Mark’s video blogs called you a Lon Chaney. How does that
feel?
Well,
Lon Chaney was a genius and I don’t compare myself to him, but I do
aspire to want to use different looks things. I think that it’s
important to try and transform your face like Lon Chaney, or your
hair or anything that you can use as an actor to create a new look.
That’s all part of your craft – your voice, the way that you move.
A lot of times, many people, actors – and it’s a choice – get
stuck in one persona which has been proven to work for them. That’s
okay, and its fun even, but it would really bore me. So I think that
what he was saying about Lon Chaney is that I want to try and create
the whole character both physically and emotionally.
Has
this quenched your desire to do a superhero movie or has it only
fueled it to do more?
No,
I’m satisfied. I think that this was the one, and I’ve done this
now. So unless there was a really great script to a sequel I’ve
probably done what I’ve wanted to do in terms of doing a comic book
movie. I would come back and do another one if there was a great
script attached to it.
Isn’t
there a comic book out there now that you’re attached to in some
way?
Oh,
yeah. Well, my son Weston has developed a character called Enigma.
That deals with spiritual elements also in New Orleans back during
the Civil War. This is something that we went to Richard Branson’s
company with and Deepak Chopra who got excited by it. So they’ve
committed to doing five issues of it. It’s really Weston’s
character.
It’s
a comic, but is it being shopped around as a feature film?
Well,
that’s my hope for it. We’re going to start with the comic book and
then maybe a graphic novel of it, and when we get that and if it
works then I would try to develop a script from it. That’s the idea.
How
much of the motor biking is you?
I
did a lot of it, but I didn’t do all of it.
You’re
a big motorcycle rider too, right?
Yeah,
I enjoy riding. I haven’t been riding for some time though, since my
youngest son has been born. I really want to try – I don’t want to
be the kind of role model that inspires him to get on motorcycles.
I’m looking more towards him hopefully trying sailing or something
like that. But I do enjoy riding motorcycles.
Was
there ever a point where Mark was saying, ‘No, you can’t do that?’
No,
it wasn’t like that. The only thing was that my character was most
only on Grace, the chopper, and that bike isn’t really my kind of
bike. I prefer more of the race bikes like Ducati’s or Yamaha ones.
I like that whole cyborg thing where you become man and machine and
the bike does exactly what you think, but Grace is a ’70’s chopper.
It has a front rake that is really rigid and it doesn’t corner and
it’s just a point and shoot bike. That doesn’t turn me on. I want to
get into corners and I want to drag my knee and do all of that.
Did
they give you the Ghost Rider bike at all?
They
didn’t. They were supposed to give me that Hell Cycle and I was
going to put it in New Orleans and I never got it. So I don’t know
what happened.
Do
you still collect comic books?
I
don’t, no. I do not. I still like them and I still like the idea of
them, and as you know Weston and I are developing that character. I
want to be more involved with the creating of them as opposed to the
collecting of them.
So
do you see yourself writing something for Marvel or DC or something?
Not
in the immediate future, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Did
you ever write your own comic books as a kid?
I
did. Yeah. I did do that. It’s really kind of horrible, but I used
to destroy my comics with scissors and cut all the characters out
and then glue them onto my notebook and then write what they were
saying and reconfigure them to make my own comics.
What
were a few of the characters that you remember?
I
had a character that was based on The Spirit which I just called
Spirit. He was kind of a superhero with a boomerang, weird.
Did
you save any of those?
I
wish I had them. I don’t know where any of those are, but that would
be a good one to pull out of the closet right now.
Some
of the behind the scenes footage showed a take where they actually
set your feet on fire during one of the transformations. How was
that to do? Did they pad you up from the feet to the knees?
Yeah,
and they put that sort of chemical on that burns without burning
you.
You
mentioned doing a sequel if the story was good enough. Where could
you see Ghost Rider going in a second film?
Well,
I think there’s a line in the movie somewhere where Johnny Blaze
says to the police force that he really admires the job that they do
and that when he finishes his stunt cycle career he intends to apply
his skills as a motorcycle policeman. So I can sort of see Johnny
Blaze as a super-bike cop.
There’s
a lot of stuff that you’re attached to. Can you clarify what you’re
working on?
The
things that you read on the IMDB are sometimes confused in the sense
that everything that I’m attached to I’m not necessarily attached to
as an actor because I have a production company called Saturn Films.
It’s my job and my partners job to try and get as much material as
we can into the company to develop possibly for other actors to
produce or to even direct, but there’s not really a green light on
any of these films yet. That’s just stuff that we have in our
catalogue. So currently I’m wide open. I’m not sure exactly what the
next film would be although it’s looking like NATIONAL TREASURE II.
So
that is actually going to happen?
Yeah.
It’s being written as we speak, but the hope is that it’s going to
be happening.
It’s
about Abraham Lincoln?
Yeah,
Abraham Lincoln and confederate gold and the assassination. It’s
interesting stuff. What I like about the NATIONAL TREASURE potential
series is that it deals with history and it’s also entertaining.
That’s also a good thing. There are worse things to do than to
stimulate young people’s minds about history as you’re entertaining
them.
Aren’t
you doing CRAZY DOG?
Yeah,
that’s something that I’ve been developing for a year now. That’s an
interesting character.
Are
you shooting that sometime soon?
That
would be in Manhattan and if it does happen it would be in the year
coming up, next year.
This
is your first time working with Sam Elliott.
Yeah.
He was my neighbor for the longest time. He used to live behind me
in Malibu.
So
you guys got along on the set just fine?
Oh,
yeah, Sam is great.
Who
does he play in the film, and what’s his character do in relation to
yours?
Well,
a lot and I don’t want to give it away, but it is a lot. I mean,
Sam’s character is the caretaker and he’s the one that really
understands the mythology and understands the history of the Ghost
Rider. He’s sort of the mentor to the Ghost Rider and explains to
Johnny Blaze what his problem is and what he’s in danger of, what
can happen to him. There is a reveal that is bigger than that.
Was
there any disappointment at all from the SUPERMAN project not
working out for you?
From
the SUPERMAN project? No, I’m not disappointed in that at all. I’m a
big believer that things that are meant to be are meant to be. I
don’t hold onto things. I let things go when they don’t work out and
I also believe that the right cast for a movie is the one that
usually winds up in the movie. I think that the SUPERMAN movie that
came out was a good movie and a very nostalgic movie. But I’m not
interested in repeating things. I was going to turn that character
on its ear which maybe wouldn’t have been – it obviously wasn’t
what the studio wanted because they went with a more traditional
approach. GHOST RIDER for me is a better match because it gives me a
chance to do a unique approach to something the way that I want to
do it and to maybe introduce a character to a wider audience. There
is a hardcore group of GHOST RIDER fans and I want them to be very
happy, but I also want to introduce GHOST RIDER to the mainstream
who don’t know who the character is.
So
you understand the frustration of fans who say on the web that Mark
is screwing this up because he’s changing the mythology? Do you
understand where they’re coming from?
Yeah.
Or
do you wish that they would let it go?
No
man. That’s their identity. You can’t tell them to let it go. That’s
what gives them something to get excited about. Even if it means
they don’t want to get excited about the movie that makes them
excited. They have to complain about something which is part of the
fun being a comic book fan. No, complain all you want and have it.
Go see it and then complain some more if you want.
What’s
the message that you want the fans who aren’t sure about the
character to get?
I
think that my message is go check out the whole thing and then
let’s talk.
Will
there be an action figure that looks like you or will it just be the
flame?
I
have no idea. We’ll see. I’ll probably get freaked out in Toys R’ us
one day.
What
did you ultimately feel about THE WICKER MAN movie when all was said
and done? Did Robin Hardy ever get a chance to see it?
I
have no idea. I don’t know if he saw it or not. I’m a fan of the
original and I’m glad that I made the movie because they don’t make
movies like that anymore and probably the result of what THE WICKER
MAN did is the reason why they don’t make movies like that anymore.
Again, it’s kind of that ’70’s sensibility, but I’m trying to do
things that are outside the box. Sometimes that means it’ll work and
other times it won’t. Again though I’m going to try and learn from
anything that I do.
I
think that it was a great cast, and Neil LaBute is one of the
easiest directors that I’ve ever worked with. He really loves actors
and he really gives you a relaxed feeling on the set, that you can
achieve whatever it is that you’re trying to put together, but at
the end of the day the frustration that I had with THE WICKER MAN
which I think has been remedied on the DVD because I believe the DVD
has the directors original cut, is that they cut the horror out of
the horror film to try and get a PG-13 rating. I mean, I don’t know
how to stop something like that. So I’m not happy with the way that
the picture ended, but I’m happy with the spirit with which it was
made.
In
spite of your being a star, is it increasingly harder to do movie
that are outside the box like you want?
Yeah.
I mean, I think it’s frustrating for people who work with me, people
who try and help me make the decisions because I don’t always want
to conform. So that can sometimes mean box office disasters, but I’m
really of the opinion that there are two reasons why a movie gets
bad reviews. One is because it’s bad, and two it’s because it’s so
good that people aren’t ready for it. So it’s important not to get
caught up in accolades and things that would have you stagnate as an
artist.
It’s
important to constantly be willing to risk it all because that’s the
only way that you’re going to learn and the only way to have any
integrity in what you’re doing. That’s why I feel good about THE
WICKER MAN because I do think that I risked it and so did Neil
LaBute and so did everyone else involved with it. So it’s there and
if it wasn’t there, there is a strong change that movies that are
independently minded won’t be made anymore because everything is
going sequel and everything is going hamburgers and sails and that’s
what people want right now. So I feel like it’s my duty to keep
rocking the boat good or bad.
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