#Quote1[On Bringing Out the Dead] What originally attracted me to Bringing Out the Dead was the opportunity to work with Martin Scorsese.2(On The Wicker Man (2006)) "'I might have known that that movie was meant to be absurd."3I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made Ringu (1998), and I would like to take The Wicker Man (2006) to Japan, except this time he's a ghost.4(On eating a live cockroach for Vampire's Kiss (1988)) "Every muscle in my body didn't want to do it, but I did it anyway."5(On The Coen Brothers) "Joel and Ethan have a very strong vision and I've learned how difficult it is to accept another artist's vision. They have an autocratic nature."6There is a mischievous mind at work on The Wicker Man (2006), you know? You know what I mean? And I finally kind of said, 'I might have known that the movie was meant to be absurd.' But saying that now after the fact is OK, but to say it before the fact is not, because you have to let the movie have its own life.7I try to pick ans choose my material based on what I can do to challenge myself and make myself uncomfortable. Always stay a student, never be a maestro.8When I did Joe (2013) it was an opportunity for me to get what I call 'naked' as a film presence. It was time to not put things on top of a performance, but take things off - where I could take my life experience of the last years and find a script where I didn't have to act. Where I could just be, and not think too much about it. What was a great compliment was when my wife saw it with me in Venice and said, 'That's you'.9[advice to aspiring screen actors] If you're doing something really extraordinary, chances are you'll be an original. That might scare some people in the casting office. They might not know what to do with that. What I would suggest is to put a frame on it. Tape your audition. Put your performance in a frame so they can see it, and then go into the office. But I would send the tape. If you are genuinely talented, you are to be doing things that are special. So put a frame on it.10[on developing performance style] I [wanted]to get more 'quietude' - what Hemingway would call the taut fishing line. I wanted to have that simplicity again. Joe (2013) gave me the opportunity to explore that.. I see myself as a student. I'll hopefully do more seasoned kinds of performance as I get older.11[on being sought by Cher to join the cast of Moonstruck (1987)] I don't really know why she wanted me in the movie. She kept fighting for me. She saw me in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and said it was like watching a two-hour train wreck. It was pretty intimidating to be her leading man.12I'd love to make a movie with Jack Nicholson. I don't know why it hasn't happened yet! But I think the two of us together, would [laughs] ... I'm sure it would be something to talk about! I feel very comfortable with him and I think we would do something special together.13I don't take criticism seriously and I don't take praise seriously, both would be a mistake. If you buy into the negative that is the Internet today, or the cynical critic, it's not unlike listening to an abusive father that's trying to cave you in and you can't function. If you buy into praise, to people who adore you, you might get lazy and say, 'Well, I'll just keep doing that.' You have to stay uncomfortable. I learned that from David Bowie. I said, 'How do you do it? How do you keep reinventing yourself?' He said, 'I just never got comfortable with anything I was doing.' I knew those were words of wisdom from a great artist and I took those words seriously.14I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), East of Eden (1955). Nothing affected me - no rock song, no classical music - the way Dean affected in Eden. It blew my mind. I was like, 'That's what I want to do.' This was before everyone had a thing called a Smartphone - just being famous for famous' sake. I'm not complaining, but it really sucks to be famous right now.15I am in the process of reinventing myself. I am returning to my roots, which is independently spirited, dramatic characters. I had taken a year off to re-evaluate everything I had done, different kinds of performances I had done, the more operatic and more baroque stuff like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), Drive Angry (2011) or Season of the Witch (2011). I wanted to find something where I could use my life experience, my memories and my emotions."16I started acting because I wanted to be James Dean. I saw him in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), East of Eden (1955). Nothing affected me -- no rock song, no classical music -- the way Dean affected in "Eden." It blew my mind. I was like, "That's what I want to do." This was before everyone had a thing called a Smartphone, and before the advent of the "celebutard" -- just being famous for famous' sake. I'm not complaining, but it really sucks to be famous right now.17Now even the art of film criticism... now in the LA Times, the critic who reviewed Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), incorporated how many homes I bought or sold into the review. What the hell does Lindsay Lohan's personal life have to do with her performance in The Canyons (2013)? It should always be about the work itself. What difference does it make if Bill Clinton had an affair -- how does that affect his performance as President?18Sometimes 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.19I haven't isolated myself. I am not living on a yacht somewhere. I am not tucked away or behind a gate somewhere. I am not flying on a private plane. I am going to the airport, I am with people, some of the interactions are good, some of them are not so good, but it keeps me in touch with being, you know, part of society. And I think that's necessary to stay relevant to be able to tell stories about people, which is what actors do.20Film acting is one of the only industries where you're criticized for working hard. In any other industry it's considered a quality and something to behold.21[on the most haunted place he's ever been to] There's a house I used to live in called The LaLaurie Mansion on Royal Street in New Orleans, and it's notorious as the most haunted house in the United States. I spent time in there alone in total darkness to get some inspiration to write the great American horror novel, but I didn't get far. I'm not gonna go into detail.22Halloween is a great holiday for any actor if you think about it. It's all about dress-up and playing characters. So yeah, it's always had a special place for me.23[on having a stalker] That was horrible. I mean, that's as bad as it gets: 2am and there's a naked man standing in front of your bed watching you sleep. It's not funny, but somehow people find it amusing.24I'm one of those guys where the more coffee I drink, the more stunts I do, the more relaxed I get.25There's very few things that make me laugh. Mike Myers as Austin Powers makes me laugh - that was genius - and Daffy Duck makes me laugh, but I like odd behavior. I don't like hip dialogue and one-liners and all that sort of cool, sophomoric comedy. It's just not for me.26I'm up for anything that will get me to the truth of a performance.27I 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.28I would like to see a sequel to Lord of War (2005). I think it would work really well, especially in this day and age where guns are at the center of political discussion. And also the boy in the movie, my son, there's this idea that he grows up and he goes into the trade and then I'm trying to get him out of it. I think that could be a very interesting movie.29Superman is an American myth. Like the English have Shakespeare.30I think that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) was mentally taxing, if only because I had to go to a Christmas party shortly after I had wrapped photography in Romania at 2 in the morning as the Ghost Rider. The invitation had a Christmas ornament on it with Ghost Rider's face on it as a tree. I had a couple of schnapps and went to the party; I had not entirely let go of whatever magic I had been channelling, and all hell broke lose. In fact, I think I kept saying over and over: "Merry Christmas, you assholes!" I am lucky I'm not in a Romanian prison.31The first time that I played Ghost Rider (2007). Blaze was easy; I knew he was a man who had been living with a curse for 8 years of having his head light on fire, and the tone that would take. I compared him to a cop, or a paramedic who develops a dark sense of humour to cope with the horrors he has seen. But Blaze has also caused the horrors, so he's hiding out because he doesn't want to hurt anyone else. Ghost Rider was an entirely new experience, and he got me thinking.32(1998, Movieline Magazine) I see Miles Davis as a surrealist father of mine. He was the first person to believe in me as an actor, the one who first said he understood what I was talking about. It was on The Dick Cavett Show (1968). Before we went on he said to me, "Why aren't you wearing your leather jacket? Didn't you learn anything from Dennis Hopper?" Because I was wearing a suit. Then I went out and started talking about how if Picasso could paint surreal, why couldn't actors try to achieve that as well? Then Miles came on, and he was very considerate and he said, "I hear what you're saying." He kept looking at me like we had our own connection. Ever since then he stayed in my thoughts. He said the words I needed to hear to keep going with my choices. It's weird because my surrealist name, Cage, is actually taken from a black character, Luke Cage.33(1998, Movieline Magazine) I did not want to be in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). I turned it down three times. Francis said, "I really need you to be in the movie." I read the script, which was a perfectly romantic film, but the character he wanted me to play was boring. He was the babe to Kathleen Turner's starring role. Just like women don't want to play the babe in movies, I didn't want to be Kathleen Turner's babe. I just wanted to play a character. So I thought, How can I make this guy really far out? I asked Francis about it on the phone and he said, Absolutely. I said, "I want to go really far out." He asked, "How far do you want to go?" I said, "I want to talk like Pokey" Because to me it was funny. And also, it was the way a lot of guys in high school sounded before their voices changed-they always had this high-sounding voice that would crack. When I see the movie now I'm really happy that I did that. I really am.34(1998 quote) What I like so much about Warhol-and he's actually influenced my acting, especially with Wild at Heart (1990)-is that he takes these icons and makes them his own, which is a brave thing to do. With acting it's not something you're supposed to do-you're never supposed to mimic or copy another person. For Wild at Heart (1990) I thought, 'Let's be Elvis'. I've always called that my Warhol performance, because I tried to subvert the image.35(1998, on the scariest thing that has happened to him) Years ago I was driving a car I'd bought, an Austin Healey with a V-8 engine, sort of a makeshift Cobra. I had taken it to a mechanic to put an automatic shifter in it. The mechanic did a really sloppy job. If you barely knocked the shifter it would go into separate gears. I was driving on the Hollywood Freeway and I accidentally bumped it into park. I was doing 80 mph at 10 p.m. and I started doing 360s. I wound up facing traffic, and then a Mack truck was coming at me. I thought, 'This is it, I'm dead'. The truck driver had a CB radio and said, "Put the car in reverse." I did and drove backwards until I got off at the exit, backwards!36(1998 quote) I was once surrounded by rattlesnakes in a rattlesnake patch with my cousin Roman when we were 16 or 17. We were fishing in Napa Valley and walked right into it. There was a huge one coiled in front of us. A bigger one, to the left, was uncoiled, so I knew he wasn't a problem. We had to go over the coiled one, so we felt trapped and paralyzed with fear. There was nowhere to run, we were surrounded. I saw this pole with a nail through it, and I knew that I had to do something, so I grabbed the pole and pounded the snake. Then it came up and started rattling and was about to strike. I killed it, but felt bad about it. I felt anything you kill you've got to eat, so I took it home, cut the poison glands out, took the rattles off and cooked it.37(1996, on his life) 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-doubt.38(1996) If I thought about awards, I would not have been able to do a movie like Leaving Las Vegas, because the word around town was that Mike [Figgis] and I were making the most unreleasable movie in Hollywood. I had some fear that the movie would not get released.39(1996) 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.40(1996, on if he wants to do theater work) No, I have stage fright. I don't like it. I've never gotten over it.41(1996) I remember my prom was a complete disaster. I used bonds my grandmother had given me to rent a tuxedo and a limousine so I could go to the prom with this beautiful girl. And at the end of the night I went to kiss her and she responded. I was so nervous that my stomach got really nauseous and I said, "Excuse me" and just threw up on the street all over my shoes and my rented tux. The limo driver wouldn't let me in the car. He split and I had to walk home. That was my prom night.42(1996 quote) Jim Carrey and I went to George Hamilton's wine bar. He's an interesting one. He was there and had some fun stories. I told him how he was one of my heroes from the time he played Evel Knievel. We had cigars, and very expensive bottles of wine were opened, and Jim and I were going, "This is great, man." At the end of the night we got slapped with an $8,000 bill. It was at that point that George became the fox in the Pinocchio story. He happens to look quite a bit like that fox. I would not want to play cards with George Hamilton.43{on the recession] People are losing their jobs because of what's going on in the economy, but I want to make movies that give families something to look forward to.44James Dean in East of Eden (1955), the scene where he's trying to give Raymond Massey the money on his father's birthday. I was 14, I was at the New Beverly Cinema, and I said, "Oh, no, that is exactly how I feel. Oh my God, I have to do this. Nothing else ever affected me as strongly. -- on if there were any moments in his life when he realized he was going to be an actor.45Usually it's very cathartic. The hard stuff is when you're not feeling great and you have to do a really happy scene. -- on the personal toll acting can take on a person.46I 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.47So many directors are so arrogant. For example, Klaus Kinski -- who Werner Herzog has a legacy with -- he was very frustrated with the arrogance. We always hear Werner's side of the story about "Klaus was this and Klaus was that" but you never get to here Klaus' side of the story. I was doing a scene (on "Bad Lieutenant") -- it was in my second day of shooting -- and we all know the imagination and preparation (required) to think I was on cocaine (for the character). There was a little bottle of baby powder, and I'm snorting that. I'm psyching up, I'm psyching up, and he comes up and says (in German accent), "Now Nicolas, what is in that vial?" And I was like, "Are you kidding me? After four hours of this you're gonna actually ask me that? Take me out of my preparation? You would think the director would understand the actor's process and give us the space and the room to do what it is we need to do.48(The hardest part was) trying to figure out how I was going to entertain you while playing a guy who was completely out of his mind on crack. At the same time, trying to be responsible so it didn't become an advertisement for doing drugs. The other thing is, I wasn't sure I could play the part totally sober, which I was. In Leaving Las Vegas (1995), I had a few drinks between scenes to get to a certain feeling, to get to a certain truth. But with this I was trying to look at it more impressionistically from a landscape of maybe 25 years ago to see what would come out of that filter of my imagination. -- on the toughest aspect of preparing for Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)49I was being stalked by a mime - silent but maybe deadly. Somehow, this mime would appear on the set of set of Bringing Out the Dead (1999) and start doing strange things. I have no idea how it got past security. Finally, the producers took some action and I haven't seen the mime since. But it was definitely unsettling.50[on Face/Off (1997)] Without tooting my own horn - I think it's a masterpiece.51[on making his character in Knowing (2009) a single father] I have seen a lot of movies with single mothers and their children. They're good, but there are not so many with capable single fathers. There seems to be this archetype that if you're a man and single, you're incapable of raising a child, which I think needs to be broken. If you find yourself in that position - like I have - it's important not to give up because of what people tell you.52There is a method of thought that says it's better to stay mysterious, make yourself an event so when you come out, people have a hunger to see you again. I can think of some superstars who adopt that principle, where they are very selective. But we are all going to get older, and there is something to be said about doing some of your best work when you are younger, when you still have that virility, something visceral and raw. I've heard there have been some actors who've regretted not doing more work when they were under fifty. (On why he works so much)53I remember when I met Johnny Depp, he was a guitar player from Florida, and he had no idea he could be an actor. I said, "I really think you are an actor, that you have that ability." That was just from playing one game of Monopoly with him. I sent him to my agent and he has gone on to carve out a successful career.54What happens is, you become different people in your path as an actor. When I was doing those things, I was a very new actor. I didn't have a lot of training, and I was trying to make some sort of impact, because that was what was important for me at the time - to get on the map. There were things I would do that were more shocking, or approaches I would do to try and live the character, because I didn't have the training. But then, as I went on, I started to find other methods, ways to get into characters that weren't exactly destroying my life. (On the wild eccentrics he used to get into character earlier in his career)55When I did Vampire's Kiss (1988), I got so wound up. It was so important to me that this vision I had of Peter Lowe's character get on film exactly the way that I wanted it, that I frankly don't think I was very easy for anyone to live with. Certainly, I was not easy for myself to live with. I remember that I wasn't drinking or anything at the time. One night I felt so wound up that I was about to snap. I ordered a martini. And I just relaxed, and I could tell my body really needed a rest. From then on, I learned you can do good work without torturing yourself.56It'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.57[Pablo Picasso] said art is a lie that tells the truth. What if you just want to tell the truth and not lie about it?58I needed to change my name just to liberate myself and find out I could do it without walking into a Hollywood casting office with the name Coppola.59It's very risky for an actor who's a bankable star to make pictures like The Weather Man (2005) or Lord of War (2005) because they inevitably promote them like big studio releases. And they're not big studio movies, they're more edgy, thought-provoking, independent-spirited films. What happens is, it goes into the computer, and everyone says they can't open the movie because they thought it was X when it actually was Y.60I want to make all kinds of movies. I do want to make big movies that are a lot of fun to go to, but I also want to make movies that are going to stimulate some thought and maybe raise some awareness. And so please don't think you're gonna go on a roller-coaster ride with those movies.61I'm at the point now where I know I'm doing something right when a movie gets mixed reviews, because then I'm not in the box. I don't want to make it too easy for people and I don't want to make it too easy for myself. I want to try something unusual. I feel good about the bad reviews because I feel like I've affected them on some level. They may not know what I was trying to do but they felt something.62Hollywood didn't know if I was an actor or a nut or if I was this crazy character I was playing. I had developed an image of being a little bit unusual, different and wild.63[about his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley] I'm sad about this, but we shouldn't have been married in the first place.64I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.65There's a fine line between the Method actor and the schizophrenic.66To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.

ncG1vNJzZmimlanEsL7Toaeoq6RjvLOzjqegnKeclsBur8CgnGamlal6uLvRrZ9o