Nicolas Cage is a definite Oscar contender for his double-whammy role as the Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kauffman and his twin brother Donald in “Adaptation,” about Kauffman’s obsession with adapting the non-fiction best-seller “The Orchid Thief.”
At the same time, the 39-year-old actor steps behind the camera for the first time to direct the low-budget “Sonny,” a movie about a former soldier from New Orleans who hires himself out as an escort to rich and lonely women.
Cage will talk about his new movies, but not his private life.
Did you enjoy playing twins–one brother who is an eternal optimist, the other who wallows in total self-doubt?
It was actually an epiphany for me to realize that as far as my career is concerned, I am both a Charlie and a Donald. The Donald in me is the guy who can make a big action thriller and then give in to the Charlie in me who does a serious drama or light comedy.
So how does Hollywood see Nicolas Cage these days?
I’m grateful I’m no longer pigeonholed in either my mind or Hollywood’s. I like doing the no-thinking-go-for-the ride action movies as much as I do putting myself up against a wall in a drama and looking for the truth in the character.
Why did “Sonny” take 15 years to make it onto the screen?
It was a movie that I read a few years back and I was going to play the part. Richard Gere passed on it and decided to do “American Gigolo.” When I read it, I went through all the different emotions that I do when I connect with a piece of material I want to do. I couldn’t find a director, so the picture was shelved. It was one of the best scripts that had ever been written and I never forgot about it.
And how do you feel about all the Oscar talk for “Adaptation”?
You can’t buy into that. Awards are wonderful, but you can only think of them after the fact or else it will run you ragged.
