In the new action comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Nicolas Cage gets to pull a Being John Malkovich, playing a version of himself. His co-star, Pedro Pascal, doesn’t get the same honor. He’s the film’s semi-villain — a billionaire and Cage superfan who’s also a notorious arms dealer. But the Mandlorian star shares one thing with his character: He’s a big Cage head, too. He even recently revealed that one of his more recent roles was inspired by what is arguably the legendary actor’s most out-there performance.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Pascal recalls growing up watching Cage’s movies, among them Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, etc., etc. When he was cast as the Trumpian baddie in Wonder Woman 1984, he wound up turning to 1989’s Vampire’s Kiss, in which Cage plays a decadent ‘80s Manhattan literary agent who believes he’s turning into a bloodsucker. (He’s not. He’s just lost his mind.)
Ignored upon release, Vampire’s Kiss has turned over the decades into a cult favorite, thanks to Cage’s creatively deranged work as a man who starts over-the-top and somehow goes further off the rails. (He also at one point eats a real cockroach.) Look closely and you can see traces of that in Pascal’s comic book movie debut.
“I remember shooting a scene in 1984 and, in the instant, I was like, what kind of energy do I need here?” Pascal recalled. “And I remembered Nicolas Cage — before I ever met him, before the thought of ever making Massive Talent existed — I remembered him jumping on the desk in Vampire’s Kiss, kind of torturing María Conchita Alonso [who plays his secretary]. I remembered that scene and his energy, and obviously not deciding to do that, but just wanting a fraction of that kind of chaotic energy to make the scene that we were shooting that day work.”
You can watch the Vampire’s Kiss scene in question below. And if you watch the whole thing, you’ll realize it’s essentially a 103-minute Nicolas Cage supercut.
(Via EW)