Background

Ethnicity: Nicolas’s father was of Italian descent. Nicolas’s maternal grandfather was of approximately three quarters German, and one quarter British Isles [English, Scottish], ancestry. Nicolas’s maternal grandmother was of Polish descent.

Nicolas Cage was born on January 7, 1964, in Long Beach, California, the United States, to August Floyd Coppola, a literature professor, and Joy Vogelsang, a dancer, and choreographer. His mother suffered bouts of depression and was hospitalized during his childhood. Nevertheless, he was close to her and later used his understanding of her mental illness to help create his film characters. His parents divorced when he was twelve.

The famous film director, Francis Ford Coppola is his uncle and he is the cousin of Sofia Coppola, Roman Coppola, and Gian-Carlo Coppola. He also has two brothers, Christopher Coppola and Marc Coppola.

Aunt Talia Shire was Adrian to Sylvester Stallone's Rocky, and her son, Jason Schwartzman, made his mark in Rushmore. Two other cousins, Sophia and Roman, are directors, while brothers Chris and Mark are in film and radio, respectively.

He was raised in a Catholic family. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of German and Polish ancestry.

Not wanting to lurk in the shadows of his successful uncle’s name 'Coppola’, he changed his name from Nicolas Coppola to Nicolas Cage, named after the Marvel Comics superhero, Luke Cage.

Education

Though his father encouraged him to be a writer, Nic studied theatre at Beverly Hills High school. At age 15, Cage fell in love with acting during a summer class at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. He dropped out of Beverly Hills High School to pursue an acting career, making his debut on television in 1981. Cage joined the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater, Film, and Television.

Career

At fifteen years old he tried to convince his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, to give him a screen test, telling him "I'll show you acting." His outburst was met with "silence in the car".

Cage got his start in teenage comedies, with his debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982, also featuring Sean Penn). Not long after, the name Nicolas Cage made it into lights when he debuted as a leading man in the 1983 cult classic Valley Girl.

In 1984 Cage, by then a strong proponent of the Stanislavsky method of acting appeared in Coppola’s The Cotton Club as well as in Racing with the Moon and Birdy. Throughout the late 1980s, he starred in numerous comedies, including Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and the Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona (1987), in which he played a small-time criminal who, along with his wife, a former police officer, kidnaps one of a set of quintuplets. Peggy Sue Got Married and Raising Arizona made him a rising Hollywood star, then his role opposite Cher in 1987\'s Moonstruck earned him a Golden Globe nomination. 1990 proved to be an extremely busy year for Cage with him starring in four films; Tempo di uccidere, Fire Birds, Wild At Heart and Zandalee.

After several lackluster films in the early 1990s, Cage earned critical acclaim with his performance as a self-destructive alcoholic writer in Leaving Las Vegas. His portrayal of Ben Sanderson earned him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

Since 1995, Cage has made a series of action thrillers, including The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), John Woo's Face Off (1997, opposite John Travolta), and Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes (1998). In 1998 he starred in the romantic City of Angels with Meg Ryan. After returning to the action genre with the poorly rated 8MM and headlining Martin Scorsese's dark Bringing Out the Dead in 1999, Cage reportedly received a $20 million paycheck for the action extravaganza Gone in 60 Seconds, costarring Angelina Jolie.

Cage played a more traditional romantic lead in his next two movies, the Christmas 2000 release The Family Man and the World War II-era epic Captain Corelli's Mandolin, starring the much-in-demand actress and Spanish import Penelope Cruz. In December 2002, Cage launched his directorial debut, the $5 million independent film Sonny, about a male gigolo who struggles to free himself from his madam mother. Cage also starred in Adaptation, playing both ill-tempered screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and twin brother Donald.

After reuniting with Woo for the disappointing Windtalkers (2002), Cage rebounded with the well-received Matchstick Men (2003). The busy actor also starred in director Jon Turteltaub's 2004 holiday blockbuster National Treasure, playing an archaeologist-historian who believes a treasure map is hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence. In 2007 he reprised his role in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

Cage went on to star in big-budget features like The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010), Season of the Witch (2011) and Stolen (2012), which, at best, drew lukewarm reviews. Continuing his prolific output, he garnered praise for roles in smaller films.

He then starred in the drama Joe (2014), the action thrillers Left Behind (2014) and Dying of the Light (2014), and the drama The Runner (2015).

The veteran actor was quite busy in 2016, starring in the crime thriller The Trust (2016) alongside Elijah Wood, the crime drama Dog Eat Dog (2016) opposite Willem Dafoe, the biopic Snowden (2016) starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the war drama USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016), and the comedy Army of One (2016).

In 2018 starred in the horror Mom and Dad (2018), alongside Selma Blair and the action thriller 211 (2018). More recently, he appeared in the horror thriller Mandy (2018) as a man seeking murderous revenge on a sadistic cult leader.

Cage made his directorial debut in 2002 with Sonny, a low-budget drama starring James Franco as a male prostitute whose mother (Brenda Blethyn) serves as his pimp. Cage had a small role in the film, which received poor reviews and a short run in a limited number of theatres. Cage's producing career includes Shadow of the Vampire, the first effort from Saturn Films.

In early December 2006, Cage announced at the Bahamas International Film Festival that he planned to curtail his future acting endeavors to pursue other interests. On The Dresden Files for the Sci-Fi Channel, Cage is listed as the executive producer.

Cage, an avid comic book fan, auctioned a collection of 400 vintage comics through Heritage Auctions for over $1.6 million in 2002. In 2007, he created a comic book with his son Weston, called Voodoo Child, which was published by Virgin Comics. Cage is a fan and collector of painter and underground comic artist Robert Williams. He has written introductions for Juxtapoz magazine and purchased the painting Death on the Boards.

Achievements

• 

  For his contributions to the film industry, Cage was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998 with a motion pictures star located at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.
  
  Сage has also been nominated for an Academy Award twice. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film Leaving Las Vegas in 1995. He was nominated for a second one for his role in the film Adaptation in 2002. He also won a Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild award and many more awards for Leaving Las Vegas. He has received nominations by the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA for his films Adaptation, Honeymoon in Vegas and Moonstruck. He has also won and been nominated for many other awards.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Dying Of The Light

    (When Evan Lake (Academy Award Winner Nicolas Cage), a vet...)

    2014
  • Drive Angry

    (An escapee from Hell and a vengeful waitress put the peda...)

    2011
  • Bangkok Dangerous

    (A lethal assassin travels to China to perform a quartet o...)

    2008
  • Birdy

    (Academy Award-winner Nicolas Cage (Best Actor, 1995, Leav...)

    1984
  • Moonstruck

    (In her Academy Award winning role, Cher, while waiting fo...)

    1987
  • Leaving Las Vegas

    (Nicolas Cage garnered a Best Actor Oscar for his haunting...)

    1995
  • The Runner

    (In the aftermath of the BP oil spill, a New Orleans polit...)

    2015
  • World Trade Center

    (Nicolas Cage stars in the unforgettable true story of the...)

    2006
  • Grindhouse

    (Recreating the no-budget action titles of the 1970s, dire...)

    2007
  • Knowing

    (Nicolas Cage stars in Knowing, a gripping action-thriller...)

    2009
  • Arsenal

    (Family loyalty is tested in this ferocious thriller, abou...)

    2017
  • Snake Eyes

    (Set in Atlantic City, an assassination attempt thrusts a ...)

    1998
  • Ghost Rider

    (Based on the Marvel Comics character, stunt motorcyclist ...)

    2007
  • Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

    (One of the most controversial and brilliant directors, Ro...)

    2008
  • Raising Arizona

    (When a childless couple consisting of an ex-con and an ex...)

    1987
  • Matchstick Men

    (Nicolas Cage stars as a con man with an obsessive-compuls...)

    2003
  • Inconceivable

    (Starring Nicolas Cage, Gina Gershon, and Nicky Whelan, th...)

    2017
  • Fast Times at Ridgemont High

    (Academy Award winner Sean Penn leads an all-star cast in ...)

    1982
  • Pay the Ghost

    (One year after his young son disappeared during a Hallowe...)

    2015
  • The Family Man

    (Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni star in this holiday drama abo...)

    2000
  • Snowden

    (Oliver Stone tackles the untold story behind Edward Snowd...)

    2016
  • USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage

    (Nicolas Cage, Tom Sizemore and Thomas Jane star in the ha...)

    2016
  • Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

    (Terence McDonagh (Oscar winner Nicolas Cage) is a drug- a...)

    2009
  • Army of One

    (The film is inspired by the true story of Gary Faulkner (...)

    2016
  • Vampire's Kiss

    (After a night of passionate lovemaking in which he is bit...)

    1989
  • 8mm

    (A private detective is hired to undertake a grim investig...)

    1999
  • Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

    ("Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" introduces Brooklyn t...)

    2018
  • Captain Corelli's Mandolin

    (Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage (The Family Man) and se...)

    2001
  • Outcast

    (When the heir of the Imperial throne becomes the target o...)

    2015
  • Lord of War

    (Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage thrills in this action-...)

    2005
  • Deadfall

    (After he accidentally kills his father, Joe tries to carr...)

    1993
  • Honeymoon in Vegas

    (On her deathbed, a mother makes her son promise never to ...)

    1992
  • Racing With The Moon

    (Artfully directed by Richard Benjamin, Racing with the Mo...)

    1984
  • Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened

    (A documentary that delves into the almost making of Holly...)

    2015
  • Amos and Andrew

    (A satirical look at the cult of celebrity in the story of...)

    1993
  • The Trust

    (Two corrupt police officers (Nicolas Cage and Elijah Wood...)

    2016
  • A Score to Settle

    (With only a short time to live, Frankie Carver is release...)

    2019
  • Peggy Sue Got Married

    (An unhappy woman (Kathleen Turner) tries to change her fu...)

    1986
  • Weather Man

    (A Chicago weatherman who is separated from his wife and c...)

    2005
  • Rumble Fish

    (This is an unforgettable story of a young man's struggle ...)

    1983
  • Mom And Dad

    (Children must survive a wild 24 hours during which a mass...)

    2018
  • 211

    (A teenager on a ride along gets caught up in a bank robbe...)

    2018
  • Season of the Witch

    (14th-century knights transport a suspected witch to a mon...)

    2011
  • Kiss Of Death

    (A petty thief is squeezed between the law and the Mob whe...)

    1995
  • Looking Glass

    (Ray (Nicolas Cage) must save his wife and himself from a ...)

    2018
  • Between Worlds

    (In the desolate world of highway truckers, a strange and ...)

    2018
  • The Wicker Man

    (A missing-child case draws a cop to a remote island commu...)

    2006
  • Face/Off

    (John Travolta stars as FBI agent Sean Archer doing the un...)

  • Next

    (Cris Johnson earns his living in a Las Vegas magic act, b...)

    2007
  • Guarding Tess

    (Shirley MacLaine and Nicolas Cage star in this cantankero...)

    1994
  • Bringing Out the Dead

    (Nicolas Cage stars as Frank Pierce, a paramedic on the br...)

    1999
  • Stolen

    (A former thief frantically searches for his missing daugh...)

    2012
  • Adaptation

    (A very original comedy about a screenwriter struggling to...)

    2002
  • Vengeance: A Love Story

    (On the Fourth of July, single mother Teena is brutally as...)

    2017
  • Dog Eat Dog

    (Three ex-cons botch a kidnapping, getting on the wrong si...)

    2016
  • It Could Happen To You

    (An irrepressible romantic comedy about a humble cop who l...)

    1994
  • Trapped In Paradise

    (Three brothers who are inept criminals butcher one last a...)

    1994
  • Left Behind

    (After millions of people mysteriously disappear; a pilot ...)

    2014
  • Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance

    (Johnny Blaze, aka Ghost Rider, is now hiding out in remot...)

    2012
  • Zandalee

    (Zandalee has grown bored with her poet-turned-businessman...)

    1991
  • Red Rock West

    (This offbeat mystery stars Nicolas Cage as an average guy...)

    1994
  • The Sorcerer's Apprentice

    (Balthazar Blake is a modern-day sorcerer with his hands f...)

    2010
  • Joe

    (An ex-con, who is the unlikeliest of role models, meets a...)

    2014
  • Rage

    (Paul Maguire (Nicolas Cage) is a respectable businessman ...)

    2014
  • Kick-Ass

    (Dave Lizewski is an unnoticed high school student and com...)

    2010
  • Trespass

    (Home invaders take a couple hostage until they open a loc...)

    2011
  • Windtalkers

    (A powerful, true story about members of the Navajo tribe ...)

    2002
  • Seeking Justice

    (Nicolas Cage is Will Gerard, a family man whose wife, Lau...)

    2011
  • The Humanity Bureau

    (Climate change has turned parts of the American Midwest i...)

    2018
  • National Treasure

    (A man must steal the Declaration of Independence to find ...)

    2004
  • Fire Birds

    (The Apache task force is sent on a secret mission to Lati...)

    1990
  • The Rock

    (A renegade general threatens San Francisco with biologica...)

    1996
  • Valley Girl

    (Julie, a girl from the valley, meets Randy, a punk from t...)

    1983
  • National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

    (A treasure hunter seeks the truth behind Lincoln's assass...)

    2007
  • Gone in Sixty Seconds

    (A car thief gets out of retirement to save his brother's ...)

    2000
  • City of Angels

    (Love story between a female doctor and a heavenly angel. ...)

    1998
  • Cotton Club

    (The Cotton Club was a famous night club in Harlem. This s...)

  • The Frozen Ground

    (Based on a true story. An Alaskan State Trooper (Nicholas...)

    2013

Religion

Cage grew up in a family of Catholic background, but does not talk about religion publicly and refuses to answer religion-connected questions in his interviews. When asked about the movie Knowing being a religion-themed film or not, Cage replied, "Any of my personal beliefs or opinions runs the risk of impinging on your own relationship with the movie. I feel movies are best left enigmatic, left raising more questions than answers. I don't want to ever preach. So [whatever you get] from the movie [is] far more interesting than [anything] I could ever offer."

Later he said: "I do not have a religion in my life, I wasn’t raised that way. My father always believed that if I was going to have a religion I should discover it on my own and not have it crammed down my throat at a young age. I kind of wish I had some religion."

Politics

During his visit to the University of California, Santa Cruz Cage stated that he is not a politically active actor and that he can do it in his work as he learned "more about nuclear power from the movie The China Syndrome". Cage endorsed Andrew Yang for president.

Views

In February 2011, Cage said that, at a certain point in his career, he realized that he had developed his own method of acting, which he described as "Nouveau Shamanic." He noted, "at some point, I'll have to write a book" about it. Cage later explained that he drew the inspiration for the name from the book The Way of the Actor by Brian Bates, in which he read about the parallel between the ancient shamans and thespians. In other interviews, Cage defined his acting style using terms such as German Expressionism or "Western kabuki".

On some occasions, Cage stood up for his extreme method acting. For Birdy, in order to physically feel the pain of his character (a veteran from the Vietnam War), Cage removed few teeth without anesthesia. He also spent five weeks with his face wrapped in bandages, receiving brutal reactions by various people for his aspect. When he took the bandages off, his skin was infected because of acne and ingrowing hairs. Vampire's Kiss' casting director Marcia Shulman declared that Cage asked to have hot yogurt poured over his toes to get excited during a love scene with Jennifer Beals. In 2010, Nicolas Cage coated his face in corpse paint and sported a costume covered in Egyptian symbols and magical amulets for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. He also studied Brazilian jiu-jitsu under the UFC champion Royce Gracie, for his roles in action films. During an interview of 2013 for promoting Joe, Cage revealed that he followed a diet based on red meat and steaks to gain weight for the role and to identify himself in a carnivorous.

Cage has been called one of the most generous stars in Hollywood. He donated $2 million to help rehabilitate child soldiers from war-torn areas, $1 million to victims of Hurricane Katrina and has supported Amnesty International as well as homeless charities.

He led a campaign around the film Lord of War to raise awareness about international arms control, supported "Heal the Bay," the United Negro College Fund efforts, and the Royal United Hospital's Forever Friends Appeal to build intensive care units for babies.

Quotations: "It's good to make movies that are tragedies, where people can think about things in life that are undeniable, that everyone has to deal with. But at the same time, it's also healing to make movies that are entertaining, that are a lot of fun, where you don't have to think about your problems."

"I don't want to minimize the effort that goes into having a career, but now with the video age, let's face it, you can write your own stories and you can make your own movies and get it out. Or go on stage somewhere in a small venue off-off-off-Broadway."

"I know what I want to do, I'm doing it, but I'm still very much a student of the craft and I think I can go further. I still torment myself. I have a lot of self-doubts."

"Superman is an American myth. Like the English have Shakespeare."

"I hate violence. I just hate it. I read the paper every day - the New York Times, The Guardian - and I feel it, you know? It gets inside. I'm amazed that people are capable of those kinds of things to children and women."

"Sometimes your very own family that you're close to can be toxic. They take your success or your potential as a personal insult on their failure, and they beat you up or they say you'll never make it."

Personality

While filming Birdy, the 1984 flick about a traumatized Vietnam vet obsessed with flying, Cage felt like he needed to understand “real pain” to get into his character. As a result, he went to a dentist and had two of his teeth pulled. They were baby teeth and needed to come out, but Cage demanded they not use an anesthetic so he could feel it.

He’s got a nine-foot-tall stone pyramid in one of New Orleans’ most famous cemeteries that his body will be interred within.

In 2006, Nicolas Cage lived in a supposedly haunted house. The house once belonged to serial-killer Madame LaLaurie. In the 1800s LaLaurie tortured and killed slaves.

Physical Characteristics: Cage has an athletic build. He has a height of 6 ft or 183 cm, and a weight of 90 kg or 198½ pounds. He has dark brown hair and blue eyes.

Interests

• Writers

  Jean Cocteau

• Artists

  François Truffaut’

• Music & Bands

  Elvis Presley, David Allen Coe, Diesel Boy

Connections

In 1988, Cage began dating actress Christina Fulton, with whom he had a son, Weston Coppola Cage (born December 26, 1990). Weston was the lead singer of the black metal band Eyes of Noctum, which broke up in 2012. Arsh Anubis, his new band of the same genre, was formed in 2011. Weston also appeared in his father's film Lord of War as Vladimir, a young Ukrainian mechanic who quickly disarms a Mil Mi-24 helicopter. Weston has given Cage two grandsons born in 2014 and 2016.

Cage has been married four times. His first wife was actress Patricia Arquette (married in April 1995, divorce finalized in 2001).

Cage's second marriage was to singer and songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley. Cage is an Elvis fan and used the star as the base of his performance in Wild at Heart. Presley and Cage married on August 10, 2002, and filed for divorce 107 days later on November 25, 2002. The divorce was finalized on May 16, 2004.

Cage's third wife is Alice Kim. They were married at a private ranch in northern California on July 30, 2004. She gave birth to their son, Kal-El, (after Superman's birth name) on October 3, 2005. The couple separated in January 2016 and finalized their divorce later that year.

In March 2019, Cage married Erika Koike in Las Vegas, only to file for annulment four days later.

In early June 2019, Cage was granted a divorce from Koike.

Father:

August Coppola

Mother:

Joy Vogelsang

colleague:

Evan Peters

Uncle:

Francis Coppola

Brother:

Christopher Coppola

Brother:

Marc "The Cope" Coppola

ex-girlfriend:

Christina Fulton

Son:

Weston Coppola Cage

ex-spouse:

Patricia Arquette

ex-spouse:

Lisa Marie Presley

ex-spouse:

Alice Kim

Son:

Kal-El

ex-spouse:

Erika Koike

colleague:

Shailene Woodley

colleague:

Selma Blair

References

• Nicolas Cage: Hollywood's Wild Talent
  1998