Nicolas Cage Teases ‘True Detective’ Role, Says He “Probably” Won’t Work With Prime Video Again After Refusing to Sign AI Waiver for ‘Spider-Noir’
Nicolas Cage says he wants to work with more Gen Z directors as Hollywood studios push more into AI.
Cage swung by New York Comic Con on Saturday morning, amid work on the film Perish in Minneapolis, as part of a “Spotlight” panel that spanned a career of critically acclaimed roles, action blockbusters, and indie and cult classics.
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While discussing the future of his career and how he’s trying to survive as a film performer and actor “in a very different world that is growing exponentially with so much information so quickly,” the actor addressed his time working on the only season of Prime Video’s Spider-Noir.
“The way it’s being deployed with the gifs, and we talked about Kane Parsons and what he managed to do with ‘Still Life’ in our other conversation, it seems to me that if I could like a Cindy Sherman photograph — get the character, psych up, and then take the picture, that would communicate with the meme world we’re living in today,” he said. “[But] how can you become relevant as things are moving so fast? I’m still looking for that, and I don’t really have an exact answer for you. And I’m still trying to find it.”
He continued: “How do you survive AI? Amazon is a very AI friendly company to the tune of 50 billion dollars invested to OpenAI. I am not an AI friendly actor. I didn’t sign the waiver to let them use AI on Spider-Noir. It’s kind of like I’m probably not going to be working with that studio again. But that’s OK. So I got to get with these young directors who are Gen Z and they’re going at it their own way, whether it’s through the YouTube culture or whatever it is. They’re doing it from scratch and by hand. I want to get with that.”
Cage also talked about whether he’s venturing into his own YouTube or podcast work, which led him to discuss the ongoing conversation about a potential role in True Detective season five.
“Because you can only do so many movies back to back to act, and necessity is the mother of invention, you can connect those dots too. What do I mean by necessity? Feed the family, and don’t do too many movies back to back to back. So I think I’m probably going to do another season of television,” he told the crowd. “I think I might do a season of True Detective. That’s OK that I’m the first to announce that, right? Like Jonathan Turteltaub, he gets a microphone in his hand and he goes to Philadelphia and says, ‘We’re doing National Treasure 3, and Nic’s coming. I’m like, ‘No, I didn’t sign up for that. You got to get these microphones out of these directors’ hands.” He added: “We’ll see if I want to get together with it.”
Right after, Cage also cracked a joke about what next movie he would get behind, and that, he said, was a National Treasure film where “Ben Gates is going after the Epstein files. That would be relevant. I’ll make that movie.”
At another point, while talking about the very-onlineness of today’s filmmaking, he shared that the pop culture meme featuring him that he doesn’t get is from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. “I just don’t get the Pedro Pascal, Nic Cage LSD trip. I’m like, OK, he’s got a stupid smile, and I’ve got a stupid smile. What’s the big deal?”
The rest of the conversation covered everything from Con Air and Ghost Rider to Leaving Las Vegas and Valley Girl, with Cage talking about upcoming projects as much as past ones. That includes Perish, a role he described as a trippy dream that helped him unlock the character, in which he shared he’s “wearing a rainbow artificial fur code.”
“In the dream, I was myself, and there was this little baby, and also on the other side were these beautiful ladies. They were this sort of call of the wild. ‘Nicolas, come to us, come to us.’ And I said, ‘I don’t know who this baby belongs to. I’ve got to protect the baby.’ ‘No, Nicolas, come with us, come with us. I chose the baby, even though it wasn’t my baby. I said I can’t leave a baby alone, and I woke up and I went, I just unlocked how to play the character.’”
While working with directors, Cage noted that he isn’t fond of directors who give line readings. If the director is making too many for you, “Well, why did you hire me?” A recent time the vision of a director and the actor clashed was on an upcoming project. “A movie which hasn’t come out yet called The Prince, I had these very bizarre hand gestures and the director’s [like], I’m not too sure about that. I said, ‘I really believe this is going to work… I think this is going to work,” he said. “When you see the movie, you will see that it does work.”
Across the panel, Cage noted that he’s been a student of performance and filmmaking. “It’s always about learning. It’s trying to find ways of reinvention or honing or practicing and expanding my palate, if you will, of colors that I can use in my range,” Cage said earlier in the panel. “If I can do an indie drama, which are my roots, that’s great if I can segue into action, which was a challenge at the time. Or adventure films, I wanted to learn something there to see if I could do it, or do some comedy, and even within that, the different genres. I wanted to explore different styles.”
Cage explained that he feels like no matter how ridiculous some of his characters are, they stand the test of time. “I think I’ve been lucky in that way. I don’t think any of them outside of just the tech would be misunderstood because I think they all come from an emotional place that people can relate to on some level.”
HBO did not immediately respond to The Hollywood Reporter’s request for comment.
