Nicolas Cage almost revisited his Con Air look for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Clark Collis
·4 min read
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In the out-this-week action-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Nicolas Cage plays a modern-day version of himself called "Nick Cage" and an imaginary version of the '90s-era Cage called "Nicky" who goads the older "Nick" about his career choices.

"We were trying to dramatize the idea that there is this voice in all of our heads that is a younger, cooler, version of yourself that is trying to influence you, perhaps in negative ways," says director Tom Gormican, who wrote the film's script with Kevin Etten. "We thought, why not [make] that be a physical manifestation, let's have Nick actually interacting with this, quote unquote, person."

It was an out-there concept which very much appealed to the real-life Cage. "It's a bit like Harvey the rabbit, the giant rabbit," says Cage, referring to Jimmy Stewart's invisible friend in the 1950 comedy Harvey. "He's imagining these conversations with his younger self. When Tom sent me this script I [thought], yeah, we can [have] this almost Jekyll-and-Hyde polarity with the performance. That's really where my heart is with the film."

CON AIR US 1997 NICOLAS CAGE
CON AIR US 1997 NICOLAS CAGE

Mary Evans/TOUCHSTONE PICTURES / JERRY BRUCKEIMER FILMS/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection Nicolas Cage in Con Air

Among Gormican and Etten's initial concepts for "Nicky" was for him to look like Cameron Poe, Cage's long-haired hero from the 1997 action movie Con Air. "We had come up with a few different ideas," says Gormican. "One of them was the iconic, meme-ified Con Air-look with his hair blowing that we see everywhere. I was like, maybe that's the young version of himself. And then Nic, when he came on the project, said, 'Look, that's a character, I want this to be a version of me."

Cage suggested the pair base Nicky on the leather jacket-sporting version of the actor who memorably somersaulted onto a 1990 episode of the British chat show Wogan and then began throwing money at the audience. As the late host Terry Wogan sarcastically noted while Cage took his seat, "Understatement is the watchword tonight."

"Nic said, 'You need to take a look at this Wogan interview,'" says Gormican. "He's like, 'That's the guy I want to play because I find him so obnoxious and I'd like to present him as the villain in this film."

Co-writer Etten recalls that Cage seemed particularly enthused on the days during the shoot when he got to play Nicky. "He was so drawn to it, interested in it, and just wanted to have fun with that," he says. "When we were shooting, I think those were the scenes that he enjoyed doing most. He would show up to set gleefully ready to be this kind of egomaniacal lunatic."

To make "Nicky" look three decades younger than the present-day Cage, Gormican enlisted the help of the visual effects company CoSA, whose credits include Gotham and Westworld, as well as makeup artist Bill Corso, an Oscar-winner for his work on A Series of Unfortunate Events.

"It was a combination of technical savvy and just old school artistry," says Gormican. "It was an algorithmic de-ageing process in digital make-up where you shoot it almost exactly the same, with no tracking dots or anything, and a computer overlays an algorithm on the face. It basically smooths out wrinkles, things like that, and then you do a 3D scan of Nic's head and shaping the face, the neck, the cheeks, all that kind of stuff. Once you have like a basic de-aged version of the character then the artistry comes in, drawing in things like a beard shadow and trying to get the eyes right, because your eyes droop a little bit as you get older. Bill Corso, our amazing make-up artist and prosthetics designer who played a large role in this film, would come in and actually give feedback to their artists about how to make it more like a younger Nic Cage."

Cage, for one (or is that two? Or three?), seems more than happy with the result. "I love the young Nicky character," says the actor. "For me, he steals the show. He's just so much fun to watch."

Watch the trailer for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent below.

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