Nicolas Cage: Unconventional Actor To A-List Action Star

Nicolas Cage Profile

Known for his bad boy roles, he has appeared in over 60 films and even landed an Academy Award for best actor. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we’re taking a look at the career of Hollywood Heavyweight Nicolas Cage.

Born Nicolas Kim Coppola on January 7, 1964 in Long Beach, California he is the nephew of iconic director Francis Ford Coppola. In his youth he attended Beverly Hills High School, before attending the UCLA school of Theatre, Film, and Television.

Since a young age he had nurtured a strong desire to enter the film business, due to his family’s high-profile involvement with Hollywood. Valuing experience over academics, the young talent took on a variety of small television and film roles while still in school. These included a part in the blockbuster “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” However, he was crushed to discover that his scenes were drastically cut from the final film.

Deciding to stem his perception that his family ties were crippling his ability to distinguish himself, he changed his name to reflect his favorite Marvel Superhero Luke Cage. And his gambit quickly paid off as he then landed his first starring role in the part of Randy in 1983’s “Valley Girl.”

Ironically, he impressed his own uncle while helping run the auditions for his film version of the novel “Rumble Fish”. This resulted in his casting as Smokey in the rites-of-passage drama. Coppola would again cast Cage in 1984’s “The Cotton Club” and 1986’s “Peggy Sue Got Married.”

As a result of these and other roles, he spent the 1980s on the periphery of the Brat Pack, yet continued to land prominent parts in both mainstream and offbeat projects. These included his appearances in the critically acclaimed romantic-comedy “Moonstruck” and the Coen Brothers cult classic “Raising Arizona.”

In 1992, he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in the tale of a man who lent his fiancé, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, to James Caan’s character in order to clear his gambling debt in “Honeymoon in Vegas.”

The following year Cage was paired with Samuel L. Jackson in the comedy “Amos & Andrew”, before taking on the role of a bodyguard to Shirley MacLaine in 1994’s “Guarding Tess.”

But it was his return to the city that never sleeps with 1995’s “Leaving Las Vegas” that began his sudden climb to the top of Hollywood’s A-list. He won an Academy Award for best actor, and secured several other award nominations for his portrayal of a suicidal alcoholic in a relationship with a prostitute.

Following this he appeared in several box-office successes that solidified his place as an action star. These began with his high profile pairing with Sean Connery to infiltrate Alcatraz, and defuse a chemical weapon in “The Rock”. Then he starred as a convict trapped on a prison transport overtaken by inmates in “Con Air”, and in John Woo’s identity swapping action flick “Face/Off”, opposite John Travolta.

Cage then rounded out the 90s by playing a spirit in the romantic drama “City of Angels”, a corrupt cop in “Snake Eyes” and private investigator in “8MM”, before appealing to critics as an ambulance driver working the graveyard shift in Martin Scorsese’s box-office flop “Bringing Out The Dead.”

Throughout the 2000’s Cage continued to take on high profile projects. These included the action flick “Gone In 60 Seconds”, the holiday classic “The Family Man” and the critically acclaimed projects “Adaptation” and “Matchstick Men.”

Following his streak of hits, the actor found himself attached to several high profile critical failures. These included the comic-book adaptation “Ghost Rider”, a film about a man who can see the future in “Next”, a hitman in ‘Bankok Dangerous” and the disaster film “Knowing.”

Despite this, his films had continued to bring the film studios wads of cash, and he had maintained his position among fans with two entertaining romps to find America’s “National Treasure”, and as unconventional superhero Big Daddy in 2010’s “Kick Ass.” A role he followed up by starring in the fantasy adventure “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and in the 2011 psychological film “Drive Angry.”