Actor Nicolas Cage has admitted to feeling “frustrated” by the internet memes generated from his various movie roles, saying it was “an adjustment” to see his characters used as a source of viral hilarity.
In an interview with The Guardian to promote A24’s upcoming comedy film Dream Scenario, Cage opened up about becoming a meme. He explained that he initially struggled to process what was happening when he saw images and videos of his characters pop up on social media platforms such as X/Twitter and Reddit.
“I might have been the first actor who went through a kind of meme-ification,” Cage said, reflecting on his career in the spotlight. “One person had cherrypicked from all these different movies where I was having meltdowns, but without any regard for how the character got to that place. I was frustrated because I didn’t know what people were taking from the movies other than that.
“I didn’t understand how to process what was happening. I got into acting because I was moved by film performance more than any other art form. I didn’t get into movies to become a meme. That was new. I made friends with it, but it was an adjustment,” Cage acknowledged. “I thought maybe they would compel someone to go back and look at the movies. But I had no control over it.”
Cage has embodied an eclectic mix of characters throughout his career, many of which have gained meme status due to his expressionistic acting style and larger-than-life performances. But his role as New York yuppie Peter Loew in the 1988 horror-comedy Vampire’s Kiss arguably gave birth to the Nic Cage meme machine.
His outlandish performance and its meme-soaked reputation proved to Cage that his absurd performances were part of his charm and led to roles that generated tons of funny memes, like “Not the bees” from 2006’s Wicker Man and the recent Nicolas Cage and Pedro Pascal meme from 2022’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Cage likened the unwieldy nature of his “meme-ification” to the experiences of his Dream Scenario character Paul, who finds his life turned upside down when he starts to appear in strangers’ dreams, only for them to take a nightmarish turn, with the actor noting “he has no control over this inexplicable phenomenon.”
Dream Scenario opens in theaters on November 10, and you don’t want to sleep on it as the film currently has a 92% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with IGN’s own review calling it a “great” and “provocative cringe comedy for the social-media era”, driven by “a sharp screenplay and subtly surreal filmmaking.”
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X @AdeleAnkers.
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