But enjoyable!

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INTERVIEW: Nicolas Cage on "The Weather Man"
POSTED ON 10/28/05 AT 10:00 A.M.
BY ETHAN AAMES

By Sean Chavel in Los Angeles

Nicolas Cage fits into some roles perfectly, and that’s certainly the case with his new movie "The Weather Man." It’s a brittle but insightful film about self-loathing, and although he’d done that before in recent years in comedy ("The Family Man") and in drama ("Bringing Out the Dead"), "The Weather Man" is a good marriage of comedy and drama that outdoes those two aforementioned titles. In one of the film’s running gags, his character Dave Spritz gets food chucked at him from passersby on the street that don’t like his weather reports. When he starts carrying a bow and arrow around with him, it lessens the problem.

Cage was in Los Angeles recently to promote the movie, and questions ranged from everything about the details of the movie to his role as movie star, and his personal role as a father. Cage hasn’t always done print and online interviews in recent years (for instance, he only did select interviews for "National Treasure" and "Windtalkers"), but this time he was happily available, possibly because he’s specifically proud of his work in his new film.

Q: Nicolas, you've described yourself as not being a method actor in the past. Can you explain?

NICOLAS: Well the idea that I’m not a method actor lies in the idea that I don’t subscribe to any particular method of the sort. I have my own methods. In that is: life. By the time when I agreed to do "The Weather Man," I was going through a divorce. What I tried to do is figure out how I could take a negative and turn it into a positive. I received a script for "The Weather Man," and I thought, ‘Well, here’s a parallel.’ I try to choose movies that could help me, like a therapy. Help me do something positive with a negative emotion. And "The Weather Man" was an opportunity to just take all this well of feeling that I had, and just funnel it into [my character] Dave Spritz. Dave and I were going through similar experiences and so it became an overlay of my life and Dave Spritz’s life.

Q: How many times did you have food thrown at you?

NICOLAS: Oh, yes. Uh… I wish I could be more colorful and say all the time. But I never had anything thrown at me. At least not food and not from somebody I hadn’t met before. Yes, there have been times in the past girls have thrown glasses at me and stuff like that. [LAUGHS]

Q: How much cash do you normally carry with you?

NICOLAS: Do you want to come up here and find out? I don’t have my wallet on me.

Q: Do you carry more cash than your character? Or do you have people go out and buy things for you?

NICOLAS: No, I go to the market. I just went to the market. I bought twenty packages of Gillette Mach 3 shavers. I buy in bulk, that way, I am prepared at home.

Q: You portray a man who is uncomfortable in his own skin...

NICOLAS: Yeah, there have been times where I’ve been uncomfortable in my own skin. At press junkets, for example. (LAUGHS) In a room for five hours and you have one different TV interview after another and you know that anything you say is going to be a matter of public record for the rest of your life – that can make you pretty uncomfortable in your skin. I could play that with Dave Spritz. In terms of what I do with my own anger, well George Washington once said, ‘When you’re angry, count to 10. When you’re really angry, count to 100 before you do anything.’ So I do that. And I use film to transfer that and do something positive with that emotion.

Q: How working with a green screen like a real weatherman?

NICOLAS: Well, I had done "Adaptation" where I had to act with a twin brother that wasn’t there and speak to a tennis ball. So that was a precursor to having to be a weatherman and doing everything backwards. It’s all backwards. They put up these, they’re called all put-ons, and you do it and you can’t look at it and you’ve gotta do your dialogue and it was… those days were daunting for me. I would go there very nervous about dealing with the dialogue and getting all the moves down. But yeah, I want to go talk to Chicago weathermen about what they do.

Q: Are you up to being a father again?

NICOLAS: Without going into detail, I’ve got 15 years of experience now. So I’m, yeah, I’m very… ready.

Q: Can you tell us how your fatherhood experience has changed over the years?

NICOLAS: I think no matter what walk of life we’re in or who we are, we all have that connection with our father, because are small in the beginning and they’re big. So there’s this like awesome regard for dad. On top of that, my dad is professor of comparative literature, so he’s very, very smart. So I always trying to figure how I could aspire to be him, listen to classical music and read the classic novels. So there was this intimidating aura of growing up with a university professor. So to answer your question simply, yeah, I just used my own feelings about my own father.

Q: How can you relate to the DMV scene and being recognized by the public?

NICOLAS: I don’t relate to it in the regard that I have bad [encounters] with people on the street or in the DMV. I try to make an effort to know someone. I know that if it weren’t for my fans I wouldn’t be here. I know what it’s like to meet someone that you admire and to have them be complete…well, jerks. So I always want to try to take every picture and sign every picture and take it as a pleasure to do it.

Before I was famous somebody impounded my car and they weren’t very nice about it. It was a Peugeot 505 convertible; it was Dean Martin’s car. Which is ironic because I now live in Dean Martin’s old house. This was my first car. They were so rough about it, there was no reason to impound it. They left dents all over it. I remember wanting to just go there and get my car by any means possible, so I kind of related to that. For some reason that memory comes to mind when I think we’ve all been frustrated by the bureaucracies, the powers that be. It doesn’t matter if you are a weatherman, me or you, we all have to deal with that line. It’s frustrating.

Q: What was your working relationship like with Michael Caine?

NICOLAS: It’s always fascinating to work with the best in the field, and Michael Caine has always been among the best in film acting. So I was exhilarated. It was a wonderful opportunity to study him and look at his very seasoned approach to film acting. That whole thing where he’d talk about looking at the right eye and then the left eye, and there were moments that I saw him actually do that… I was ecstatic to work with him. And he also was friendly, which was an added bonus.

In terms of the other part of the question, about my father, I’ll go on record now and say that I am not a high school dropout. That did not happen. I was not a good match for school. I was not a good match for in high school. I went to my father and said , “Dad, this isn’t me. I’m not happy. This isn’t right for me. I want to work. This isn’t right. It’s affecting my self-esteem, I got to get out.” Instead of pushing me to continue, he said, ‘That’s fine. Just get the equivalency.’ So I studied; I got the GED and I got a diploma and I left. The reason I bring that up, is that he was somebody that a history in education, he also was frustrated with the educational system and encouraged me to pursue my own goals.

Q: Did your father ever express doubts about you after you had made your decision?

NICOLAS: He knew where my strengths were, and I appreciated that. He supported my decisions.

Q: How is your movie about men and women?

NICOLAS: We all…it’s the battle of the sexes. There’s times when it just doesn’t…we have difficulty on both sides comprehending what exactly it is that you are. I think Dave is on the receiving end of that because he’s is not thinking all the time. He’s forgetting. Things are slipping his mind. He’s gotta get the tartar sauce, big scene that ends disastrously. For her, something that’s mundane as tartar sauce could tip the apple cart, because we know it’s more than that. It’s everything. It’s all building up to that one little straw.

Q: What category does this movie fall into in your perspective, without trying to trap it into one descriptive genre?

NICOLAS: I have to say that I wanted to make a family drama. I think that’s the genre so to speak in which you can do the most good, making a film about people that you can relate to. It’s also the hardest kind of movie you can make. It can collapse into saccharine, or be this hallmark card-like, or be an episodic T.V. show. I don’t want that at all. So in my goal to make a family drama and also my artistic aspirations to do something a little edgy, I found a really happy marriage with The Weather Man. Because Gore went outside the box to do something personal and artistic. And at the same time, the story was going through something with a divorce like I was. In a way that’s not hallmark card or saccharine.

Q: Did you draw from personal experience?

NICOLAS: Yes, I’m very sensitive. I draw from the weather, too. [LAUGHS]

Q: Can you relate to a character who has a great deal of worldly success but a difficult family life?

NICOLAS: It isn’t reality. It’s the age-old adage. You’re not going to really find happiness in material things. They will make things easier, but there is always going to be that part of you that wants something else. I wrestle with that everyday. I’m always struggling between the spiritual and the material. That’s a hard thing to explain to people… but I believe that beyond the physical world we are all connected.

Q: With all the movies this year, do you feel the need to work all the time?

NICOLAS: The reality is I haven’t been on deck since "National Treasure "and that was a year ago. I do about two movies a year. It works out that way. To me that’s not too much. But on top of that, yeah, I like to work. It’s part of my spiritual beliefs. I like to do something with my time that’s productive. I want to serve, and I feel I’m serving myself and I’m serving you by working. I’m not going to just sit around at the pool and luxuriate myself with a margarita. That to me is not where I want to be. So yeah, work is part of my principles.

Q: What part of Dave will carry with you for the rest of your life?

NICOLAS: I think now Dave will be around for the rest of my life, even after I’ve moved on. Dave will be around, on film. So he’s now… We’re connected. I don’t know how else to answer that. Yes, well, I’m happy with the movie. I’m happy with the work that Gore did. I had a great opportunity to work with Hope Davis and Michael Caine. I don’t know what else to say other than I hope you guys enjoy it and get something out of it.

Q: Is he like your character in the upcoming "Johnny Boy"?

NICOLAS: Well, he’s a man that’s just trying to take a negative and turn it into a positive. Like we all try to do. He’s a superhero that had a very powerful thing happen to him, and he’s taken that negative and he’s got to turn it into something positive.

Q: What's with all the audio commentaries that you've been doing for DVD recently? It doesn't feel like something you're comfortable in doing...

NICOLAS: I hate it. I don’t ever want to do it again. I don’t know why – am I the guy that does it the most? Because I’m told that everyone does it and you got to do it. Well, I think it’s terrible. I think it’s much better to retain your mystery, not give away all your tricks away. Any magician knows that. The best thing you can do is let the audience have their own interpretation. However, it is helpful to students of film acting and directing. You can see where if you wanted a great education to filmmaking, listen to any Martin Scorsese movie on Criterion and listen to the way he’s saying it, you’ll [get something]. You’ll be seeing or hearing less of those with me. Now that I know I can get away with it.