If, like me, you’ve seen the trailer pig, the new Nicolas Cage film and have so many questions – questions that go far beyond “Who has Nic Cage’s pig?”. – Interview with Gabriella Paiella with the Hollywood legend in GQ is an absolute gift.
„I’ve drawn to scripts that don’t feel like I have to act that much – that I have the life experience or the memories or the pathos, if you will, where I can just resonate more,” says Cage . „Acting is fantasy and to a certain extent you have to believe that you can be these characters and that you can be in these situations.”
As well as talking about his acting process, Cage talks about his formative food memories (he was once rocked to sleep by nuns who gave him anise? !!?!) And how he drew from his experiences with his pet crow and octopus to inform his portrayal of the main character of the film, a cook who became a truffle collector, looking for his stolen truffle pig.
Here are the top five takeaways and the best quotes from the interview:
1. The pig is REAL and has a NAME and it’s BRANDY.
I have to admit that when I watched the trailer I wasn’t entirely sure if the pig was a real pig or just a wonderfully effective CGI pig. The trailer is very dark, it left room for confusion. However, Cage tells Paiella that the pig’s name was Brandy and that he „enjoyed working with her”.
2. Carrots were an important part of making brandy glow on camera.
Cage says that brandy, like many of us, was „payment-driven”. “She wasn’t that interested in people and I understand that,” he says. „But if they need a very soulful look in their eyes, you can show them some carrot off-camera.”
3. Nicolas Cage was very interested in cooks even before this film.
Cage shared his quarantine experience and mentioned that he missed going out to eat. “I like to spend my money on it, go to restaurants and talk to the cook. It’s almost a spiritual part of my life, „he says, referring to his sincere appreciation for chefs and their work.” His role in pig felt like an extension of it. „I bring chefs to a very high level in the field of art.”
4. Nicolas Cage is a bit like Remy Ratatouille.
Speaking of his fondest food memories, Cage recalls his father, the academic August Coppola, who introduced him to the magic of pairing food and wine, be it in the form of a bucket of KFC and champagne – „I’ll be damned if that would be “Not the best combination of flavors I’ve ever had. It was like that American tempura, ”he remembers – or goat cheese and red wine. “’Take that goat cheese and drink this glass of red wine and sip on it, isn’t that something,’” he remembers his father’s words. It is! It is that Ratatouille taste fireworks !!
5. Thanks to Nicolas Cage, one of the best lines in the film was not cut.
There’s a line in the script that’s so central to the themes of the film that it’s part of the trailer: „We don’t have a lot of things that really interest us.” According to Cage, he had to struggle to keep that line in the script. “At some point during filmmaking someone wanted to cut the line and I said, ‘No, this is the line! That’s why I wanted to play Rob. We can all relate to that. ‘”
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