It’s a snowy afternoon at the Sundance Film Festival and actor Nicolas Cage is still on a high from the warm reception his new thriller Mandy has just received the night before at its world premiere screening.
He’s here to talk about the film with actors Andrea Riseborough (Oblivion), Linus Roache (Batman Begins), and director Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) so the room is naturally buzzing with excitement. When things quiet down a bit, we’re ushered into a private space and the giddy look of excitement on Cage’s face is undeniable.
Mandy is a genre exercise for the prolific actor, something that he hasn’t tackled to this degree in a while. The film takes place in the 1980s and he plays Red, an outsider living a quiet existence with the titular Mandy (Riseborough). When the leader of an evil cult (Roache) destroys the small shred of peace he has left, the only answer is blood-soaked revenge.
The first half of Mandy is mostly character build-up, creepily set to a psychedelic pace while the second half indulges in unhinged violence. It’s an interesting cinematic combo that works surprisingly well and thrilled many Sundance audiences.
We talked with Nicolas Cage about the making of Mandy and how he creates such wild and memorable characters. The following is a transcription of that conversation.
Q: It’s good to meet you.
Nicolas Cage: Likewise. Where are you from?
Q: The Bay Area.
Cage: I love the Bay Area! I can already tell this interview is going to be great.
Q: That’s high praise but you haven’t heard my questions yet.
Cage: (laughs) Not at all. Ask me whatever you’d like.
Q: Let’s start off with a bit of the basics. Your body of work strongly suggests you enjoy making genre pieces like Mandy, but what exactly attracted you to this specific project?
Cage: I was doing a movie called The Trust with Elijah Wood. We’re both film enthusiasts, so he mentioned he had seen this movie called Beyond the Black Rainbow and flipped out over it. When I saw it, I flipped out over it too and didn’t sleep for a week.
Q: You are not alone there.
Cage: Exactly. I then contacted the film’s director, Panos Cosmatos, and when he told me about his new project Mandy, I knew that his vision with this script would make this movie a very wild ride. The catch was I wanted to play the lead role of Red and Panos only saw me as the villain Jeremiah Sand. I didn’t feel I had the emotional resources to do that or the life experience to play it in an organic way. It didn’t work out and a few months later I got the call that he wanted to try and make Red work with me. That turned out to be great because that allowed Linus Roache to step in and play Jeremiah Sand in a way I never could.
Q: Why did you see yourself more as one character than the other?
Cage: To be totally blunt I didn’t want to light a woman on fire in this movie. Those are some of the things the villain does and I couldn’t see myself doing that.
Q: Fair enough.
Cage: I also didn’t think I had the life experience to play the character in a way that would make sense. In the movie, Linus Roache still manages to make this villain tragic, which I wouldn’t have been able to do. I knew that when we were filming together, but I didn’t know how to get there.
Q: You’ve worked with a lot of talented filmmakers in your career. What are some of the qualities you look for in your directors when you’re starting a new project?
Cage: It’s such a luxury to work with a filmmaker who knows what they want because so much time can get wasted when you’re trying to understand the filmmaker’s vision. Since Panos had a specific vision in mind, we were able to get into it quickly and efficiently. A lot of filmmakers like to fix something that isn’t broken and then they realize they prefer it the original way. By then you’ve already done 20 takes and wasted everyone’s time. You can’t do that on the schedule that most independent films have. You’ve really got to be on point and get it done.
Q: As an actor, how do you deal with the kinds of movie sets you just described? The ones where you have an overthinking director and things aren’t running smoothly.
Cage: Thinking is a good thing, but I simply think a lot of filmmakers don’t know what they want. Sometimes there’s too many cooks in the kitchen and they listen to other people who have no idea what filmmaking is and are just looking for dollars. That can destroy the process.
Q: Your character goes to some intense places in this movie. Are you the kind of actor who needs to be put in that chaotic headspace in advance in order to fully grasp the character, or can you just show up on set and go wild?
Cage: It depends on what I have available to me at my fingertips. Some days it’s all there and some days I have to read the newspaper to get me into that angry state.
Q: Reading a newspaper in 2018 will definitely get you there.
Cage: It has a few times.
Q: It will get you into that “Cage Rage,” if you pardon the expression.
Cage: (laughs) Not at all, that’s very clever.
Q: Your fans love it when you let your characters loose and go wild with the performance, whether it’s screaming dialogue at the top of your lungs or showing a random character tick that somehow feels improvised. How focused is that energy? Do you give the same passionate take every single time or do you switch it up from take to take?
Cage: It usually comes for me in the moment. Sometimes I know in advance that I want my characters to be fun and wild and sometimes it just comes to me on set.
Q: Some of the takes that make the final cut of your movies are some bold choices.
Cage: (laughs) Yes, they are.
Q: You’ve gotten a lot of questions over the years from many journalists, so is there one question you’re tired of hearing over and over again?
Cage: Well, if I answer that question then I’ve opened myself up to the worst question I keep getting.
Q: OK, maybe the second worst question you keep getting?
Cage: (laughs) “What’s your motivation?” That one always confuses me because actors approach projects very differently. Our motivation is never black and white. Your questions were very smart and well-researched, so you don’t have to worry about asking me things I’d rather not talk about.
Q: Thank you for that.
Cage: My pleasure. Have a safe trip back to the Bay Area.
Mandy recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will open theatrically later this year.
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