Just Winging It

‘I make movies that I’d want to see; I’ve always liked action movies and I just made three of them,” says Nicolas Cage in defense of the realm of exploding machinery and fab abs.

“But I have 15 years of movies behind me and I’ve tried to make every kind of movie there is. When I’m 70, I hope to look back on my career and see that I kept changing and the kinds of movies kept changing, and that’s why I stayed interested.”

Change is indeed key for Cage, who scored a box-office action triple-header during the last year, starring in “The Rock,” “Con Air” and “Face/Off.” The combined worldwide grosses of the films thus far is more than $530 million--which is to say the 33-year-old actor is shaping up to be quite a cash cow for Hollywood.

Cage has no intention of making a career out of muscle movies, however, and to illustrate that point he recently wrapped “City of Angels,” a film he describes as “a fantasy in the tradition of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ ”

Having interviewed Cage 10 years ago when the circus first blew into town for him in the form of his first box-office hit, “Moonstruck,” one notes that success becomes him. The skittish bravado of Cage at 23 has ripened into a dignified professionalism, and marriage seems to suit him as well.

“I like being married and feel very lucky to be married to Patricia,” he says of life with his wife of two years, actress Patricia Arquette, during a break on location in Elysian Park for “City of Angels.”

Inspired by “Wings of Desire,” Wim Wenders’ critically acclaimed film of 1988, “City of Angels” finds Cage cast as Seth, an angel who yearns to lead a mortal existence after he falls in love with a doctor (played by Meg Ryan).

“Like ‘Leaving Las Vegas,’ this is essentially a love story, but because it involves angels and the afterlife, it’s not as grounded in reality and is more of a fantasy,” says Cage, referring to the 1995 film chronicling the bleak final days of an alcoholic, which earned him the Oscar for best actor. “The script did remind me, though, of what it was I was trying to achieve with ‘Leaving Las Vegas.’

“Surprisingly enough, that film was about the celebration of life for me, of not taking things for granted and looking at life through the eyes of a child,” says the actor, who’s dressed in the black sweater, trousers, coat and muffler he wears throughout “City of Angels.” “Our ability to feel awe over the myriad experiences of life seems to fade as we get older, and without being precious, I wanted to examine that with this film. The challenge, of course, is to find a way of expressing this idea that won’t come off as cute but as purely joyful.

“Whether I’m doing an action movie or a love story, my approach to the work remains the same. It’s all about trying to do something original with material that’s been done before, fitting the needs of the genre, and still maintaining your own concept of things.”

‘City of Angels,” slated for release early next year, is the second feature from Brad Silberling, who made his debut two years ago with “Casper.” Obviously, “City of Angels” is an opportunity for him to move into another realm of filmmaking, and he went into it acutely aware that the casting of Seth would make or break the movie.

“We needed an actor with the presence of a silent-film star, because a good deal of this character is articulated through the expression in his eyes,” Silberling says. “Nick is this huge, hulking, handsome person with an exquisite set of eyes, and I’ve noticed that even when he’s not cast for his vulnerability, he comes across on screen as completely open. So he’s perfect for Seth.”

The film, based on a screenplay by Dana Stevens, was originally conceived by producer Dawn Steel, who optioned the story 10 years ago.

“Dawn’s the one who had the idea of taking the basic nucleus of Wenders’ film and continuing the story where his movie ends,” says Charles Roven, who is married to Steel and is co-producing the film with her. (The story didn’t exactly end there: Wenders continued to explore the characters and themes presented in “Wings of Desire” in 1993’s “Faraway, So Close!”)

Of Cage’s contribution to the film, Roven says: “Nick gives an added dimension to any role because he never plays anything conventionally. Seth is a creature who’s witnessed life but has never experienced it, so in a way he’s like a child. He can’t come across as an alien, though, and it takes somebody very clever to give you that nuance.”

Cage acknowledges that finding the proper nuance for his performance in what is, in some sense, a sequel to “Wings of Desire,” hasn’t been a snap.

“Wenders’ film is a masterpiece, but it’s primarily about what’s going on in the minds of the citizens of Berlin after the war,” he says. “There are elements of great romance in ‘Wings of Desire,’ but ‘City of Angels’ is about nothing but a romance, so it’s a very different story.

“Hollywood’s turned out quite a few angel movies of late, and I didn’t want to do anything that had already been done. If there’s anything unusual in how I’m approaching this part, it would be that I find angels somewhat terrifying. So rather than playing Seth sweet and lovely, I’m trying to inject something a bit spooky into him; in order to convey some sense of ‘other-ness,’ for instance, I don’t blink in certain scenes.

“I’m still trying to figure out exactly who this character is, though, because when you’re playing something as far out as an angel you can pretty much write your own rules. In preparing for the part I read a book called ‘The Physics of Angels’ that made fascinating correlations between the theory of relativity and St. Thomas Aquinas’ hierarchy of angels. One point they made is that we now use scientific terminology to deal with things that were formerly the province of theology--for example, a photon is not unlike the popular conception of an angel, in that both are entities of light capable of traveling. In the end, these things remain ultimately mysterious, but there’s no denying that science and theology intersect at various points.”

So having researched the subject, does he believe in angels?

“I’m not gonna be so narrow-minded as to say angels don’t exist, but if they do, I somehow doubt that they have wings, live on clouds and blow bugles,” he says with a laugh. “As is probably true for most people, there have been times in my life when I felt something else was driving the car in a benign and positive way. Was it was an angel? I don’t know. Does heaven exist? Like everyone else, I like to think so.

“And maybe it’s here on Earth,” he adds. “This film is also a postcard to L.A., which is a character in the movie. All the locations will be recognizable, and oddly enough, many locations we’ve used are places I’ve lived. Since this is my home, I’m happy we’re showing L.A. in a way that’s very romantic.”

The film was shot by John Seale and boasts a score by Gabriel Yared; both won Academy Awards for their work on “The English Patient,” last year’s Oscar winner for best picture

Seale describes the film as “a quiet, emotional love story.”

“Despite its celestial narrative, it’s not a special-effects movie,” he says. “We do, however, want to convey the sense of a slightly altered reality, so we use a little slow motion with Seth to make him smoother and more mellifluous. We’re also using lots of wind and lots of top shots to suggest an angel’s point of view.”

Playing an angel is a bit of a leap for a guy fresh from three action films, but it’s less a stretch for Cage than it would be for most others. The actor, recently described by the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane as having “passed from light comedian to heavy action hero while maintaining the air of someone who finds existence to be one long, weary joke,” plays his action heroes with startling originality and a heavy dose of irony.

His Cameron Poe in “Con Air” was a bizarre hybrid of Clint Eastwood and Elvis Presley; “Face/Off’s” Castor Troy is a sexy archvillain so over the top that he belongs in a “Batman” movie; and as Stanley Goodspeed in “The Rock,” Cage gave us a laconic science whiz who reluctantly assumes the mantle of a messiah.

“With the action films I am to a degree standing outside and laughing at the whole spectacle,” he confesses. “My sense of irony is a big part of my personality so it’s hard for me to suppress it, but I have to for ‘City of Angels.’ Ironic distance wouldn’t work for Seth, because he’s primarily driven by a sense of awe.”

And Cage is just plain driven. He went directly from “City of Angels” to the Montreal set of Brian De Palma’s “Snake Eyes,” a political thriller for Paramount Pictures that finds Cage cast as a cop. That segues straight into Tim Burton’s “Superman,” which begins shooting for Warner Bros. on Oct. 6. Cage’s schedule is so tight that the two films wound up overlapping by three weeks, which triggered a nasty and very public fight between the two studios.

“That didn’t feel great,” Cage says of the dispute, which culminated in both studios threatening to take legal action in their zeal to obtain his services. “I’ve always tried to do my business in an honest, straightforward manner, and it’s frustrating when you hear that something was said that wasn’t said and you feel a little out of the loop. My word is important to me, so that was a very unpleasant episode.

“Generally, though, things seem to be flowing well. I’ve been working with the same manager [Gerry Harrington] for several years so he’s become a friend, and I’ve had a good experience with my publicist and my new agency,” says the actor, who is represented by Creative Artists Agency President Richard Lovett. “Thus far I haven’t felt crowded by the business, but if it ever gets too crazy, I’ll just shut it off--and that’s something you can do if you decide to.

“I’m ready to take some time off, but generally, I’m pretty driven to work. The idea of playing Superman intrigues me because it’s a character that’s known by children around the world, and it gives me the opportunity to tell them that it’s OK to be different,” says Cage, who doesn’t plan to do any special training to prepare to play the Man of Steel.

“I’ll just do the maintenance training I always do to maintain my sanity,” he explains. “It’s a great way to blow out stress, and with the schedule I’m on now, I definitely need it.”

His Superman will take a different tack than those who have flown before. “Interpretations of Superman usually center on his superhuman powers, and nobody’s ever focused on his status as an outsider before,” Cage says. “Tim Burton has always been sensitive to characters who feel alienated and excluded from society, and Tim, [screenwriter] Wesley Strick and I are in complete agreement as to the direction the film should take.

“Yes, it’s a comic book movie, but it’s also a wonderful modern myth of the Atomic Age. And I think it’s important to try to do my best acting in a film kids can see,” says Cage, who has a 6-year-old son with his former companion, model Kristina Fulton. “The ideas children get fed are important, so to me ‘Superman’s’ an important movie.”