» L7 Interview: Nicolas Cage
Newly graduated wizard Nicolas Cage talks to Emmanuel Itier about conjuring movie magic on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
At the age of 46, Nicolas Cage seems to be experiencing quite a revival. Having spent the past few years knocking out critically mauled fare, he has now turned 2010 into the year of his career rebirth with acclaimed roles in Kick-Ass and Bad Lieutenant. But instead of capitalising on his newly regained king of cool credentials, he’s now throwing audiences a typical curveball by taking the lead role in a movie based on the dancing brooms sequence from Disney’s Fantasia. Updated to modern-day New York, it tells the tale of a young novice (Jay Baruchel) who is appointed apprentice to Cage’s wise conjurer.
When you were a child, did you believe in magic?
Yeah, I don’t really think I ever stopped. To me, magic is the imagination, and combined with a little bit of will power you can do marvellous things. For example, a painting or a movie, or even a science experiment or a speech that moves people are all acts of magic, when you think about it in those terms. But the goal is to stay like a child. That’s the key, especially in the arts. You can’t lose the awe and the wonder of the child’s eye.
You’ve been involved in this film from the very beginning. What was the idea behind it?
I had been very interested in Arthurian mythology and legend and lore, and I had spent quite a bit of time in England. I wanted to make movies that would be healing or helpful or positive that wouldn’t just be about, ‘Okay, let’s shoot everybody and there is blood and murder’. I was doing a picture called Next. I was playing a magician of sorts in that movie, but I said I really want to play an Arthurian wizard or sorcerer, and I asked the producer Todd Garner about it. Specifically, I said, ‘I want to be like a guy in a red velvet jacket with a giant silver wig with all these horses and a carriage that blows through towns in Germany and scares everybody.’ He said, ‘That’s a good idea. Alright, let me think about it because… I’ve got it, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! So we tried to expand the story and find ways that we could lengthen this little ten-minute segment in the Goethe poem in Fantasia and make a big two-hour live-action film with it.
You worked with the director, Jon Turteltaub, on National Treasure 2…
Jon has a gift for comedy. He has a gift for keeping me light and accessible and in the fun zone, and I guess I have an interest in the darker and more edgier things, so the two of us together make for a happy marriage and we keep sort of balancing each other out. The question is what about the spectacle of the visual effects of the magic, and John really dove into it. He was out of his comfort zone. It was a new world for him. He used to call it Nick’s world: ‘I’m going to Nick’s world.’ But I believe he pulled it off in a big way.
What’s the upside of making family films compared to something darker like Bad Lieutenant?
The upside is that you get to make a lot more people happy. You get to give families something to look forward to, to celebrate together almost like a ritual. It’s like, this movie is coming out, let’s all get together and go and know that you’re in good hands. I think that is probably the best way I can apply myself as a film actor — making movies that appeal to the whole family. With films like Bad Lieutenant you get to facilitate the other dreams — the ones that are more edgy and punk rock, if you will, or dark, and those are age-appropriate for the midnight audience. I like them too.
You and Jay Baruchel have a great chemistry….
I just think he’s hilarious and incredibly smart and well-read. You can ask him any question about any subject and he will have an answer for you, and he will attach it to something else and you’ll learn from it. We would go to work with this sense of delight that we were going to improvise. A lot of actors don’t like it when you improvise. It intimidates them or they’re out of their comfort zone. They don’t want to go there and just stick to the script. This was a chance to really get more like a jazz approach, in the true sense of the word, in that I had another musician to work with or to riff with.
“I said, ‘I want to be a guy in a red velvet jacket with a giant silver wig with all these horses and a carriage’”
What is the secret of playing a great screen wizard?
I think that first you have to decide what sort of a wizard is he, and in this case, he’s a wizard that is selfless and who is there to guide and help man. And then you have to commit to it and be open to the belief that these things can happen, and once you have that belief and that faith, then you can do it. But you have to look like you really mean it.
Did you look to Dumbledore or any other wizards?
No, this is a strictly personal creation that has nothing to do with any other wizards that I have ever seen.
Not even with Merlin? You mentioned Arthurian legend…
If Arthur and Merlin are there it’s only because of my mind and my imagination of what they may have been like, but not because I met them.
Did you watch Fantasia as a child?
I loved it. I was transported by it and it was my introduction to classical music, but for some reason, it was always a late show because I remember I would fall asleep every time I went to the theatre to see it. It usually was on New Year’s Eve, but boy is that one of the most beautiful movies ever made.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is released this week. Emmanuel Itier is a reporter for www.screenrush.co.uk
