Renfield director Chris McKay counts down his favorite Nicolas Cage movies

In director Chris McKay's horror-comedy Renfield (out April 14), Nicholas Hoult plays the titular servant of Nicolas Cage's Dracula, who has tired of doing his fanged master's bloody bidding.

"Renfield is about a co-dependent relationship with a boss from hell, as played by Nicolas Cage," says McKay, whose previous directing credits include 2017's The Lego Batman Movie and 2021's The Tomorrow War. "It's the story of a guy who has to stand up to his boss and take his power back."

Universal Pictures Nicolas Cage in 'Renfield'

McKay admits that directing Cage was a dream come true, as someone who has been a fan of the actor since the '80s when he first made his unique cinematic mark in films including Birdy, Raising Arizona, and Moonstruck.

"He's so joyful and enthusiastic," says McKay. "He's a cinephile. He loves movies. He loves horror movies. He loves Dracula movies. So there was a lot of touchpoints that we had to talk about. I found him very inspirational, because he was so playful, and he was having so much fun. I truly treasure people who approach [making films] in almost a childlike, playful way. I get a lot of inspiration from him. I have my entire life. I guess I kind of fell in love with him from the start and then I kept following his career."

But which of Cage's movies does McKay love the most? The director makes his choices below.

RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

"Raising Arizona and Birdy, that Alan Parker movie, I saw right around the same time. I was just really fascinated with him as an actor. [With] Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers really made, like, a Looney Tunes cartoon come alive and Cage was so perfect for that. There was a bunch of movies that were all happening around the same time where he was just so unique in every single thing he was doing, he felt like the most interesting actor in the world."

THE ROCK (1996)

"That's got to be Michael Bay's best movie. Cage is supposed to be a nerdy scientist, and when they're not being gentle enough with the little green biological weapons, he kind of blows up in people's faces in such a fun way. He can make anger not repellent. A lot of people have a hard time when they express anger as characters, but he actually makes you lean in, because it's never repellent anger, it's always fun or he makes it funny. He's got incredible comic timing. He can make the slightest things really funny. I love his relationship with Sean Connery. There's his girlfriend, and they're about to have a kid — all that stuff works so well, and it's because you fall in love with him. He's got a puppy dog look to his face, particularly in that movie. It's just such a wonderful performance."

ADAPTATION (2002)

"I like Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman — those guys are so incredible and inventive, and then to bring Nic into it and have him play the dual roles, he does such a good job of creating a distinction between those two characters, and the childlike enthusiasm of the Donald character about screenwriting, and how much it pains Charlie, it's just so well done. I'm so tickled watching him play off himself in that movie. He does such a good job and he's so pitch-perfect. I love that movie so much."

FACE/OFF (1997)

"Face/Off, again, in some ways a dual role, playing John Travolta's character as well. Talk about an unhinged performance as Castor Troy. He plays Castor Troy, body and soul, every insane choice — like as the priest, grabbing the girl's butt, during the "Hallelujah" thing. I don't entirely know where the John Woo of some of that leaves off and the Cage starts. I've got to imagine that there was a lot of improv going on with those guys. So he's Castor Troy, and he's just this insane nightmare villain, pure evil but fun. And then, when he's playing John Travolta's character trapped inside the Castor Troy body, he's so good, and he turns on that deep vulnerability, with Gina Gershon and their child, and the stuff like that. And the action's great. He would do his own stunts in our movie, get up in the rigs, do all that stuff. He was really game."

MOONSTRUCK (1987)

"Here's this movie where he is playing this guy a little odd, maybe not necessarily what people would see when they read the script. He's taking his own unique point of view on it, and yet at the same time [hitting] all the romantic beats. That's a tricky thing to do, that stuff can go wrong really fast. If you're doing one thing, and somebody else is doing another thing, and the rest of the movie is doing another thing, it can go wrong. He's one of those guys who truly understands the situation that he's in, the movie that he's in, the tone that he's in, and he can make it work. Obviously, it's Cher's movie, and she's the main thing, but he can still make these really fun choices. He makes you lean in, he makes you curious, he makes you fall in love with him. It's a combination of this uniqueness and vulnerability that just makes you care about this guy. He really makes that relationship with him and Cher work, and that character work, and I always loved that."

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1994)

"Andrew Bergman is the filmmaker and he did Honeymoon in Vegas, he did the original In-Laws. It Could Happen to You is Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda, and it's just this little Frank Capra kind of movie. He's this cop, he gives a lottery ticket as a tip and says we'll split it, it's a winning lottery ticket — and it's just such a charming little movie. It shows he can exist in one of these little romantic comedies, and be the center of it, and just be a really warm, incredibly moving, and charming presence. It's outside of the world of the Mandys, and Ghost Riders, and everything else that he does."

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