Nicholas Cage

Season 9, Episode 909

Original Airdate: March 3, 2003

The nephew of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Cage changed his name so that his acting career would not be chalked up to nepotism.

Stories abound concerning the extremes to which he will go to “feel” his roles, not the least of which was the time he had a tooth extracted without Novocaine in order to fully appreciate the pain suffered by the wounded soldier he played in the 1984 film “Birdy.”

Born January 7, 1964, in Long Beach, CA, to a literature professor father and dancer/choreographer mother, Cage first got into acting while a student at Beverly Hills High School. After dropping out at the age of 17, he made his film debut with a small part in Amy Heckerling's 1982 classic, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

Following a lead role in 1983's “Valley Girl,” Cage spent the remainder of the decade playing endearingly bizarre and disreputable men, most notably in “Peggy Sue Got Married” (1986), “Raising Arizona” (1987), and the same year's “Moonstruck,” the last of which won him a Golden Globe nomination and a legion of female fans ecstatic over the actor's unconventional romantic appeal.

The 1990s saw Cage take on a string of diverse roles ranging from a violent ex-con in David Lynch's “Wild at Heart” (1990) to a sweet-natured private eye in the romantic comedy “Honeymoon in Vegas” (1992) to a dying alcoholic in Mike Figgis' astonishing “Leaving Las Vegas” in 1995, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar. 1996 saw him take the lead in the Alcatraz thriller “The Rock,” and the following year he made “Con Air” and John Woo's “Face/Off.” 1998 marked Cage's short return to sentimental romance with his performance as a love-struck angel in “City of Angels” before returning to make the crime thriller “8MM” (1999) and Scorsese's “Bringing Out the Dead.”

After the romantic comedy “The Family Man” in 2000, Cage moved back into action with “Gone in 60 Seconds” before expanding his career in the newfound role of producer to such films as “Shadow of the Vampire” (2000), “Sonny” (2001) and, “The Life of David Gale” (2002). Cage then teamed Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze for a duel role in the complex comedy “Adaptation” (2002). Adaptation found Cage recieving his second Oscar nomination.