Nicolas Cage Quotations | Page 3

When you're playing supernatural characters, there's an infinite number of possibilities with a character. And I also think they're wonderful and entertaining for the whole family. You don't have a high body count ...

I've always maintained that I see myself as a student. There's always something to learn and be challenged by and hopefully grow from.

Guy Pearce is very precise and clear about understanding the rhythm and the music of a scene.

Actors work with their look. I come from the Lon Chaney Sr. school of acting. I'll wear wigs, I'll wear nose pieces, I'll wear green contact lenses in my eyes. I'll do whatever I need to do to create a character.

Celebrity is a word I take great umbrage with. I'm actively anti-celebrity.

I think on some level, all of us have a little bit of belief in the possibility of different energies and forces and things like that. Otherwise, we wouldn't be afraid of them. Or there wouldn't be so many movies about them.

Nobody ever thinks clearly at the airport.

I would say that I'm 98 percent skeptical, but the other 2 percent [is] open for the possibility of things.

One of the first signs of being depressed is that you lose interest in things. That's why I think it is important to stay passionate.

Nobody wants to watch perfection.

I never say never, but I haven't been given the quality of script to compel me to go on television.

We've become so glorified in the movie-star system that it's become this artificial royalty. The truth is that we're circus clowns.

I may be alone in this, but I do sense the power of film, in that movies have the ability to literally change people's minds. That's pretty powerful stuff when you consider that.

Feel like real time unfolding. It's going to smack of reality and feel as real as it can ... The buildings themselves aren't (shown) ... The movie's about what happened amongst this handful of men when the buildings came down.

I try to keep my characters raising more questions than giving answers. I don't want to leave too much on the table. I want you to have your connection and your secret understanding of the character.

I cry a lot. My emotions are very close to my surface. I don't want to hold anything in so it festers and turns into pus - a pustule of emotion that explodes into a festering cesspool of depression.

You aren't a true internationalist until you've supplied weapons to kill your own countrymen.

I don't like it when people on the street say "smile" or "cheer up." It's a real cheap line. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling real grateful for everything. It's a solid time in my life. When people say I look sad, they're wrong.

There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is, how do we arm the other 11?

Well, Amber [Heard] is still raising her eyebrow at me because I said that I've been 180 miles per hour on the 405 freeway on a motorcycle and she doesn't believe me but it's a true story. I did it coming home from work at 3 in the morning on another movie I made about cars called Gone in 60 Seconds. I bought a Yamaha-1 and I was doing 180 miles per hour home on the 405 and that's really, really crazy but I did it.

To begin... To begin... How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. Okay, so I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana-nut. That's a good muffin.

You get dinged for wanting to do a comedy, then wanting to do a big-budget action film, and then wanting to do an indie. But you can't let other people trying to label you get in the way of trying to do something artistically.

I love working with younger actors because they always come into the game full of energy and ideas that challenge me and keep me learning and stimulated.

You can choose your family sometimes. You can choose people, it could be a teacher, it could be a professor, it could be someone you work with that actually genuinely cares about you and wants you to succeed.

Tattoos to me are the outward symbol of the inward change within my soul.

I do like to move and get physical in my movies.

Nobody can make a movie as exciting as Jerry Bruckheimer. When it's a Jerry Bruckheimer movie that it's going to have lots of chrome and gloss, it's going to be sexy, and it's going to be big and fun.

I needed to change my name just to liberate myself and find out I could do it without walking into a Hollywood casting office with the name Coppola.

I remember once imagining what my life would be like, what I'd be like. I pictured having all these qualities, strong positive qualities that people could pick up on from across the room. But as time passed, few became qualities that I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced, and the sorts of people I could be, all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer until finally they got reduced to one - to who I am. And that's who I am.

Yeah, my real name is Coppola. I changed it because they'd think I was some nepotism-oriented kid.

When I started experimenting with fantasy and horror films and looking for characters who had some sort of emotional or mental difficulty, I saw opportunities to express my music - dare I say art - in a way that I could get a bit surreal - like Francis Bacon's screaming pope, or Edvard Munch with [The Scream].

I want people to discover my movies, and however they choose to receive it is their business.

I try to make two movies a year. To me, that's not too much. On top of that, I like to work.

I'm always going to judge somebody on their work ethic, and whether or not they made me feel something, or whether or not I felt they did a good job. To me, it's important to try to block anything personal out and look at the performance, in any field.

I love England - it's no secret.

I don't know if my wife left me because of my drinking or I started drinking 'cause my wife left me.

I find it inspiring and I always think when I'm working on something new, whether it's a new kind of character or a new kind of story or new kind of camera, it gets my creative wheels spinning.

Don't lose the best thing in your life just because you are not sure.

I will promise you that if I can give you two good scenes -- which is what I always try to do in every movie -- then I feel like I'm doing my job.

I guess it would fall into the stalker category more or less. I was being stalked by a mime - silent but maybe deadly. Somehow, this mime would appear on the set of Bringing Out the Dead and start doing strange things. I have no idea how it got past security. Finally, the producers took some action and I haven't seen the mime since. But it was definitely unsettling.

I had been making a lot of family oriented movies, which I also like. But I still have a passion for the midnight audience and for midnight movies.

It's kind of a unique concept, but it's totally real, isn't it? ... I mean, these paramedics put themselves in incredibly stressful situations, are killing themselves to save our lives and they're not really regarded or appreciated.

With my name in cement, I feel actualised. - On cementing his hand prints on Sunset Boulevard

It's important to keep the eccentric spirit alive, because when that goes, the work will go.

There is a misperception, if you will, in critical response or even in Hollywood, that I can only do exaggerated characters. Or what they would call over-the-top performances. Well, this is completely false.

My father once said, 'If you're in the desert and you're dying of thirst, are you going to drink a glass of blood or are you going to drink a glass of water?' I think what he was trying to say, interesting coming from my blood father, is sometimes there are people in your family that can be toxic.

I just try to keep it fresh. I try to keep it interesting. The truth is my roots are independently spirited dramas that are small, and I will always go back to that well, because that's where I broke out of. But I'm going to keep doing as many different movies as I possibly can.

My house is basically a trailer. I live a circus lifestyle. I'm always moving. It's not always easy for people that live with me, but that's the path I chose.

I'm at the point now where I know I'm doing something right when a movie gets mixed reviews, because then I'm not in the box. I don't want to make it too easy for people and I don't want to make it too easy for myself. I want to try something unusual.

I love art, I love music. I can listen to Stockhausen and a very experimental, avant-garde approach, and I can listen to Beethoven and have a more classical, traditional approach. Why not be able to do that with film performance?

Often you hear stories about never working with children. I disagree because children still have that residual magical thinking. They haven't had their imagination knocked out of them by turning into adults and life experiences.

I really would like to be able to face all my superstitions that may have existed and walk under the ladder and do everything you're not supposed to do.

I'm always curious about what happens when we die. And I'd like to think that somehow the spirit goes on. I'd rather not think that it's just about this.

I got into film acting because I wanted to be James Dean. We lost him at a very young age - he was only 24 - but I'm in my fifthies, so there's only so many times you can act like James Dean. I had to find new ways of expressing myself that kept me fascinated with film performance.

People are losing jobs, people need to be entertained, and I want to make movies that parents and children can look forward to seeing, that can become a kind of family ritual.

It's no secret that I've always had an interest in mythology. Whether it's Arthurian or ancient Greek or even Marvel universe. I've always connected with it on some level.

I was very happy with Vampire's Kiss, which in my opinion was almost like an independent laboratory to start realizing some of my more expressionistic dreams with film performance. Then using what I had learned in Vampire's Kiss and putting it into a very big action movie in the form of Face/Off with John Woo. If you look at those two movies back to back, you can see where I stole from my performance in Vampire's Kiss.

With the advent of this kind of TMZ culture, it sadly seems to have infiltrated the vanguard of film commentary. I see these reviews sometimes where I think, well, you have a right to say whatever you want about my work, and I will listen whether it's good or bad and see if there's something that I might work with, but personal issues don't have a place in film commentary.

If I do do a sequel, I'm going to have to know for sure that the script is better than the original. So I'm going to be very careful about that because I'm not eager to repeat myself.

In this day and age, where you have a lot of comic book movies made every day, and most of them are really good boys, it's important to have a couple bad boys out there, too.

That was one of the reasons why I wanted to tell the story of Colin Price. I saw someone in this fictionalized political character that was trying to do something important for his city. He meant well, but then you see that the human flaws had really derailed his past. It seems to be happening more and more in our country. I wanted to hold a mirror up to that.

I do enjoy animated movies.

I definitely went through my magic phase. I think all little boys do at some point or another - they get fascinated by magic tricks.

I've been lucky to work with some of the most creative people and it's true that I enjoy filmmaking and I'm an enthusiast.

I bought a Yamaha-1 and I was doing 180 miles per hour home on the 405 and that's really, really crazy but I did it.

I actually enjoy working with green screen, because I can imagine all that stuff happening, and I really cut my teeth on a movie I made called "Adaptation" where I had to imagine four-page dialogue scenes with my twin brother, who was nothing more than a tennis ball and a gas stand.

I'm not a trained actor. I'm someone who is autodidactic and learned on my own.

I don't think movies are the reason why this violence exists, I think it's going to happen whether movies are there or not.

People often say that you should never work with child actors. I think that's all wrong. Children have not had the imagination kicked out of them by life experience and adulthood. So, they still are very much alive with that kind of magical thinking which enables an actor to believe they're in these circumstances and make them real to you.

I'm the first to admit that I like going to, or my memories at least of going to Clint Eastwood movies or Charles Bronson or James Bond.

I would love to work with Tim Burton. I think we would be very good together.

I'm very impressed with 'Drive.'

I've acted professionally since I was 16.

Movies work, in my opinion, on the best level when they're more enigmatic, when we don't say it's this or that and where it raises more questions than answers.

I find children inspiring. The way they look at the world. The magical world they live in, to me, is inspiring.

I see myself as a student. I would never call myself a master or a maestro. If you take the path of the student, that means that you have to try a little bit of everything in the hopes that you're going to learn something or strike some kind of new note or new sound or new expression in the process. I'm not going for grades. I'm going for an education. That means I'm going to continue experimenting and trying new things to try to evolve and learn.

I've always had an interest in Louisiana, especially New Orleans.

I happen to still like really dark, dramatic, fractured characters. They're the reason I got into movies.

My father used to say to me, "It doesn't matter what the profession is, but if they're the best in their field, it will always be fascinating to watch." And I said, "Really, dad? Even like someone who makes pencils?" "Even someone who makes pencils, it will be fascinating to watch."

Peter Fonda is the reason I became a motorcyclist. I saw Easy Rider and I bought a motorcycle the next day, and I rode it all the way from LA to San Francisco.

I was thinking about being more global in my work, which means trying more foreign countries and working with foreign filmmakers, hoping they would give me a new take on my work, a new point of view, reinvent me in some way.

I care about the connection with the audience. Film is such a powerful medium. Movies can change the way people think.

We do see Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat, but it's very rare to see the Chinese male actor in Hollywood movies, which is something I take great umbrage with. You know, my son is Asian. He may want to direct one day; he may want to be an actor like his father - and I want that to be open to him.

I would like to find a way to embrace what Led Zeppelin did, in filmmaking.

I always add a year to myself, so I'm prepared for my next birthday. So when I was 39, I was already 40.

I generally enjoy the rehearsal process because that's where you can share your ideas, get your thoughts and feelings out and see whether or not they're going to land, whether or not people are going to agree with them, particularly the director. So you can sort out in that process any elements that need to be sorted out before you're on the set, and of course that saves time and it also makes everyone more comfortable working together.

I think that the best characters are the ones who both manage to be attractive and repulsive at the same time.

Actors have an opportunity to use storytelling as a way to solve pain.

Remakes are always a challenge and they always are sitting ducks.

Someone like Vincent Price or somebody like Christopher Lee, they never won an award, and it doesn't matter. They're cool.

The only way the devil really exists in my opinion... is in interactions with people who don't walk the walk and talk the talk; people who act one way, or talk one way and then do another. Those are the deals with the devil. I don't see the devil as somebody who is a horned, goateed guy with a fork in his hand that's there to continuously stab me and send my soul to hell. I don't see it that way at all.

I think anything that opens my mind and triggers my imagination I'm reading. I like to read science fiction and imagine the character. Anything that keeps my imagination flowing.

When you have 400 people watching you making a movie, it doesn't go where you want it to go. It's a lot of pressure.

Those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.

I think I've become more relaxed throughout my career. I don't feel the need to jump up and down and make a big noise to get people to pay attention to me. I don't need to do punk rock gestures or eat a cockroach or do something weird to say I exist.

I like both Blu-ray and DVD, but Blu-ray gives you more options.

I'm going to steal the Declaration of Independence.

Some things are true whether you believe in them or not.

The idea that kids younger than mine are fighting guerilla wars using guns sold for profit is just mind-boggling to me. And the question is, who are the people supplying those weapons? How do they sleep? What kind of people are they?

And on top of that, my dad is a professor of literature so he's very, very smart. So I was always thinking, 'How I can aspire to be him?' There was this intimidating aura growing up with a university professor.