On his day, Nicolas Cage can still put out a performance that reminds people why he was once one of the most sought-after stars in Hollywood, but more often than not the 56 year-old is content to show up for the paycheck, and his gradual decline from the top of the A-list to the biggest name in direct-to-video genre movies has been something to behold.
The self-styled ‘Noveau Shamanic’ actor certainly likes to keep himself busy, having appeared in no less than fifteen movies in the last two years alone, the vast majority of which have been bargain bin actioners, bar notable exceptions like his self-aware voice roles in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Teen Titans Go! To the Movies and an insane turn in Mandy that was one of his best outings in years.
Cage has another six projects lined up for this year, too, but his only officially announced movie of 2021 sounds like it has the potential to be one of his most memorable performances, not to mention one of the craziest. In The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the Academy Award-winner will play a fictionalized version of himself, down on his luck and desperate to be cast in the latest Quentin Tarantino movie who, as per the synopsis, “occasionally talks to an egotistical 1990s version of himself who rides him for making too many crappy movies and for not being a star anymore.”
The plot will also feature the actor being reduced to appearing at a Mexican billionaire’s birthday party, where he’ll perform some of the most famous scenes from his back catalogue. In a recent interview, Cage gave a little more detail on how this crazy meta process is going to work, saying:
“It’s a stylized version of me, and the fact I even have to refer to myself in the third person makes me extremely uncomfortable. There are many scenes in the movie where modern or contemporary, here we go, ‘Nic Cage’ and then young ‘Nic Cage’ are colliding and arguing and battling it out. It’s an acrobatic approach to acting… I’m probably going to have to look at a couple of the movies from the past again, because I think we’re gonna have to reenact some of those sequences. It’s like waking through a Cabinet of Dr. Cagliari version of Con Air and Face/Off.”
The fact that the story is also set to feature drug cartels, assassination attempts, the CIA and the kidnapping of Cage’s estranged daughter and ex-wife gives you an indication of just how wild The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is going to get, and it will no doubt be a must-see for all of the actor’s fans.
