Essay: All Nic Cages go to heaven
Is he the greatest actor of his generation? Maybe.
I like to play a movie game with my friends that I invented called ‘Actor Hell,’ and now I’d like to play it with you. Someone once suggested I call the game ‘Actor Jail,’ but I was raised Catholic and, therefore, have a natural weakness for the heaven/hell binary. Yes, I have talked to my therapist about this.
The rules of ‘Actor Hell’ are simple: one iconic performance can save any movie or television actor from perdition. I’m not talking about a boring Oscar-worthy performance, but one role so unforgettable it becomes timeless. In the context of this game, the word ‘actor’ is genderless. Which brings me to the first of many minor rules — Meryl Streep is forbidden from the game because everything she has ever done is iconic. So is Judi Dench (have you ever seen her in The Chronicles of Riddick? Incredible.)
There are other bylaws and caveats that I will remember, or fail to remember, randomly, and that’s because this is my game, I am the inventor, and here’s another rule: I am a capricious god.
Also, just so you know, ‘Actor Heaven’ is lovely. There’s a 24-hour gym and slot machines. The buffet is stocked with carbs and fried shrimp. The weather is pleasant, but it can get hot. ‘Actor Hell,’ however, is a lot like colonoscopy prep, forever. Plus, your iPhone is really cracked.
So here’s a brief example of how the game is played—and it’s best played by opinionated bastards who think movie hot takes are high-stakes gambles: pick a random actor like, say, Dolly Parton (who is also a singer, yes, I know, calm down.)
Dolly Parton is saved from ‘Actor Hell’ because she is epic in the 1980s office-comedy 9 to 5. Is Dolly Parton an amazing actor? Sure? She’s a sassy treat in Steel Magnolias. But none of that matters. Her performance in 9 to 5 is a classic. Our culture would be poorer without it. Now, here is where the game can get a little cruel, and cruelty isn’t the point. This is just a game based on subjective opinions that can be joyfully argued (my opinion, however, is wholly objective.)
I think Ben Affleck should go to ‘Actor Hell.’ He is a talented actor, director, and screenwriter (actually, an extremely talented director — Gone Baby Gone is a superb movie, but alas, this game is not ‘Director Hell’). He has acted very well in some fine flicks. But for the life of me, I cannot think of one unforgettable performance. His supporting roles in Good Will Hunting and Dazed & Confused are star turns but not substantial enough to save him. Feel free to disagree, but I’m right.
Sorry, Ben. I actually think you were a pretty okay Daredevil.
***
I came up with the idea for this brilliant game when I was briefly employed at a movie website that was slowly dying. I felt like Jonah in the belly of a giant zombie whale. But the good news was I could escape my cubicle to attend screenings of movies no legitimate critics wanted to see.
That’s when I saw 2010’s Kick-Ass, a vulgar, hyper-violent tongue-in-cheek superhero send-up best known for introducing Chloë Grace Moretz as teenage vigilante Hit-Girl. But it was the actor who played her father, a lunatic Batman-wannabe named Big Daddy, who caught my attention. The actor’s name was Nicolas Cage and I had grown up loving his movies. Cage was a minor character in Kick-Ass, and yet his performance — alternating between gentle and unhinged — stood out. I still think about, um, Big Daddy.
The next year, he would star in four movies, two of which were different movies about demons from hell who drive cars really fast.
So the first person I played ‘Actor Hell’ with was Nicolas Cage. Reader, I played the game with myself because my sole coworker was always busy sitting in his cubicle upvoting links on Digg. (If you don’t know what ‘Digg’ is, then count yourself lucky that you didn’t slowly boil in the rank motel hot tub that was the viral internet in the years before social media.) I declared, to myself, that Nicolas Cage would not go to ‘Actor Hell’ because of one performance of his that I think is nearly perfect.
I know that Nicolas Cage has become something of a joke, at least to complete philistines (which is most of America). He’s a bug-eyed ham who will appear in any movie, no matter how awful. And he has made, easily, at least a dozen certifiable turkeys. I mean, he starred in a big-budget adaptation of that paranoid Christian apocalypse book Left Behind. He became a human meme thanks to Neil LaBute’s dimwitted 2006 remake of the influential 1973 folk-horror flick The Wicker Man.
Cage’s career strategy recalls the theory that a million monkeys typing at a million typewriters for eternity will produce something of value, even something brilliant, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The man churns out direct-to-streaming dreck on a regular basis. I sometimes ignore those flicks. But then… I thought his 2020 Lovecraftian psychedelic horror Color Out Of Space was dreck until I watched it late one night. Like Baby’s daddy says in Dirty Dancing: “When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong).
Another example, a better one, is 2018’s Mandy. It’s a berserker of a movie. The image of a blood-soaked Cage smiling while driving a car is immediately recognizable, and Mandy, a fever dream revenge rampage, should be a part of the midnight movie canon.
So, yes, Mandy saves Nicolas Cage from ‘Actor Hell’. He is gleefully bonkers in it. The same year that Mandy came out, Cage starred in director Michael Sarnoski’s moody, mournful Pig, about a reclusive chef forced to confront his past and reopen old wounds. It’s one of his best performances, too, and I’ll accept this as one of Cage’s many ‘get out of Actor Hell’ cards.
I don’t know if 2023’s Dream Scenario, a creepy comedy starring Cage as a dull, balding professor who starts popping up in the dreams of millions of people, to his surprise, delight, and then despair, is one of his absolute best, but it’s worth mentioning. It’s another example of a movie I thought was just Cage earning a paycheck, and while it was, it’s also a fascinating exploration of modern fame.
The truth is, there are a number of answers to the question “Should Nicolas Cage be spared from ‘Actor Hell’?” I will accept the following as 100% correct: Raising Arizona, The Rock, Vampire’s Kiss, National Treasure, and Adaptation. I will also accept Face/Off. Each of those movies is legendary in its own way, and they’re legendary because of Nicolas Cage.
But my heart’s actual answer is 1987’s Moonstruck. I love that movie. It is a rare romantic comedy that is both deadpan and bursting with passion. It is also a movie that saves Cher from ‘Actor Hell.’ Her tempestuous love affair with her fiancé’s brother, played by Cage, is both hot and hilarious, tortured and poetic. When we first meet Cage’s character, he’s sweating in the bowels of a Brooklyn bakery, like Hades in the underworld.
John Patrick Shanley’s screenplay is deeply forgiving of humanity’s messiness, and so is Cage. Even at his most unhinged, Cage is an actor of uncommon compassion. As Ronny, the one-handed baker who adores opera, Cage is both vulnerable and combustible, sometimes at once. Moonstruck wrestles with family, fidelity, and true love. Is it corny? Yes, yes, wonderfully so. To quote Ronny: “We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die.”
He is truly iconic in Moonstruck. That performance is immortal. One doesn’t need an Academy Award to escape ‘Actor Hell.’ One only needs to act in a role that people will talk about for years and years. In this way, Nicolas Cage is almost like Meryl Streep. Nearly perfect.
Welcome to ‘Actor Heaven,’ Nicolas Cage.
Would you like to play my movie nerd game? Of course, you would! Drop your favorite actor and the movie role that saves them from ‘Actor Hell’ in the comments. I will then render my supernatural verdict. It is a responsibility I take very, very seriously.
Retro 150 Word Review: ‘Moonstruck’ (1987)
Nic Cage Double Feature: ‘Longlegs’ (2024) & ‘Pig’ (2018)
Uh, Leaving Las Vegas? How does that not get a nod?
Kick-Ass mentioned!!! I was obsessed with that movie when it came out. Nic Cage gave a stunning performance.