Photo: Getty
Nicolas Cagehas his priorities straight.
Cage tells PEOPLE, however, that in real life he’s always put his work second to family matters.
“First and foremost … there’s no version of Nick Cage in reality that doesn’t want to spend time with his children,” he says. “There’s no version of Nick Cage that didn’t put family first over career. I turned downLord of the Ringsand I turned downMatrixbecause I didn’t want to go to New Zealand for three years or Australia for three years because I needed to be home with my son Weston, that’s a fact.”
“So there is a huge disparity between that Nick Cage inMassive Talentand the Nick Cage sitting in front of you right now,” he adds.
Nicolas Cage.Rich Fury/Getty
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While the version of himself portrayed inMassive Talentmay not be completely aligned with the real Cage, the film does poke fun at his storied filmography and the passionate fandom surrounding his career. Director Tom Gormican and co-screenwriter Kevin Etten both got the surprise of learning how the real Cage differs from the persona that precedes him.
Adds Etten, “He understood that if he took something like this on he would get to really, on a huge scale, play with people’s ideas of who they think he is versus who he really is. It’s like a big performance art piece in that way.”
“You become pretentious and then you fall into the realm of diva,” he continues, “and that’s when mistakes happen in your personal life and on camera.”
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent— which also stars Pedro Pascal,Tiffany Haddish, Neil Patrick Harris, Ike Barinholtz and Sharon Horgan — is in theaters Friday.
source: people.com
