Nicolas Cage Has A Surprising Reaction To Fans Screaming At Him On The Street

He knows how to handle it.

By Michileen Martin | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

nicolas cage face/off

If you’re reading this then that means you’re a living person, which also means, naturally, you love Nicolas Cage. So if you saw the star of Mandy and Pig and Raising Arizona walking down the street, what movie quote would you yell at him? Would you shout the Con-Air line, “Put the bunny back in the box?” Maybe “Bangers and mash! Bubbles and squeak! Smoked eel pie! Haggis!” from National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets? Or maybe something a little longer from Wild at Heart about how your jacket represents a symbol of your individuality, and your belief in personal freedom? Well according to the man who bears an absolutely unbearable weight of massive talent, whatever movie lines you want to yell at him, he’s cool with it.

As part of the promotional lead-up to The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Lionsgate hosted a Reddit AMA with Nicolas Cage, leading to some great questions and revealing answers from the actor. One fan asked Cage the movie quote that he hates “the most” when yelled at him by strangers. Cage’s answer? He doesn’t hate them at all. In fact, all he feels is gratitude. You can see his response below.

The AMA is an absolute treasure trove not just for Nicolas Cage fans, but for anyone interested in film or even just celebrity trivia. Scanning Cage’s answers you get to learn the hilarious thing Adam West said to Cage about the latter channeling West in 2010’s Kick-Ass, the strange pasta he ate with Charlie Sheen, and some of the directors Cage wants to work with. But we have to say, one question posed to Cage not only should win some kind of prize for that specific AMA, but may very well be the single greatest question of all time.

Cage’s dream role that he hasn’t accomplished yet? He wants to play Captain Nemo — the protagonist of the classic Jules Verne science fiction novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and Mysterious Island. If he could only save three of his movies for posterity they’d be Bringing Out the Dead, Leaving Las Vegas, and Pig. His most challenging performance? Nick Cage — the fictional counterpart to himself in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

That film will hit theaters this Friday and there’s a lot of buzz about it. Nicolas Cage plays a neurotic, impossibly indebted version of himself who is hired by an incredibly rich super-fan (Pedro Pascal) who winds up being a drug lord. Early reviews have been spectacular for the flick, and the movie’s upfront payday helped solve a huge problem for Cage.

In a March interview, Nicolas Cage opened up about why he’d made so many horrible direct-to-video films in the 2010s. As many suspected, Cage owed millions to the IRS. At the same time, he was paying a staggering $20,000 per month to keep his mother — who had long suffered from mental illness — out of an institution. But with the payday that came with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Cage officially became debt-free.