The Full Biography
Nicolas Cage. Actor. The Long Beach nephew who refused the family name, won an Oscar for a man drinking himself to death, then spent a second career as a cartoon of himself he both played and outran.
This is his story.
The image most people still carry is a yell, a leather coat, a pair of faces swapped in Face/Off, or a man in Las Vegas who has already decided not to live. The year might be 1995, or 1997, or any year since in which he has opened another picture while the last one was still leaving theaters. What the still cannot show is Nicolas Kim Coppola of Long Beach, a literature professor’s son, a dancer’s son, a nephew of Francis Ford Coppola who changed the surname so the uncle would not be the job, tax trouble, five marriages, and a late run of small serious rooms — Mandy, Pig — made at a volume almost nobody else attempts.
He was born on January 7, 1964, in Long Beach, California, to August Coppola, who taught comparative literature, and Joy Vogelsang, a dancer and choreographer. Brothers Marc and Christopher shared the house. The larger clan included Francis, Talia Shire, and, in the next generation, Sofia. The first pressure was a famous last name in a family that treated film as a trade, not as a visit. He took the name Cage from two sources he has named: Luke Cage, the Marvel hero, and John Cage, the composer. The point was not disguise. It was a refusal to ride. He used Cage on the work for decades before the legal paper fully caught up. Beverly Hills High School, early auditions, a small pass through Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982. The door the public still recognizes is 1983.
Valley Girl, opposite Deborah Foreman, is a punk from Hollywood and a girl from the Valley, a Romeo-and-Juliet joke that became a real picture because he played the want without a wink. The same year his uncle put him in Rumble Fish. The Cotton Club (1984) and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) kept him in the family shop while he was trying to leave it. Alan Parker’s Birdy (1984) showed the intensity that would become the method: he does not sand a feeling to make a producer comfortable. In 1987 he had the year that should have been enough for one man. The Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona made H.I. McDunnough a comic engine. Norman Jewison’s Moonstruck, opposite Cher, made him a romantic lead with a wooden hand and a full-throated operatic need. The town could have filed him as the nephew who got funny. He would not stay filed.
David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) took the Palme d’Or at Cannes and let him play Sailor Ripley as a snake-skinned devotion. Vampire’s Kiss (1989) had already shown the method at a pitch some rooms still treat as a dare. Then Mike Figgis’s Leaving Las Vegas (1995). He is Ben Sanderson, a man who goes to the desert to drink until it kills him. Elisabeth Shue is the woman who will not be a rescue. The performance is not a stunt. It is a man walking toward an ending and refusing to make the walk charming. In March 1996 the Academy gave him Best Actor. A Golden Globe came with it. That statue is the hinge the public knows.
What followed was a second career that looked, from the cheap seats, like a man cashing the statue. The Rock (1996). Con Air (1997). Face/Off (1997), with John Travolta, a John Woo picture about two men wearing each other’s lives. City of Angels (1998). Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). National Treasure (2004) and its sequel made him a family-matinee archaeologist of the Constitution. Between the explosions he still took the odd serious room: Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002) brought another Oscar nomination, for a pair of Kaufman brothers. Martin Scorsese used him in Bringing Out the Dead (1999). The volume never dropped. The IRS, around 2009, put liens on a man who had bought castles and comics as if the next picture would always pay for the last impulse. He sold properties. He kept working. The work, for a stretch, was the payment plan.
That is the turn, and it is easy to file as decline. The turn is the decision, after the Oscar, to become a popular object — and then, without retiring the object, to walk back into rooms that required a face, not a yell. Mandy (2018) is grief as a fever. Pig (2021) is a man looking for a truffle hog and, without speeches, for a life. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) let him play a version of the cartoon and then step aside from it. He has not become scarce. He has become, again, specific, while still delivering the four-picture year almost no one else will attempt. The nephew who would not use the name ended up with a name the culture uses as a verb. He is still, in his sixties, adding titles to a list that already looks like a dare.
The volume between the statue and those quiet rooms is a filmography, not a fall. Michael Bay’s The Rock (1996). Simon West’s Con Air (1997). John Woo’s Face/Off (1997), with John Travolta, two men wearing each other’s lives. City of Angels (1998). Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999), a paramedic on a New York night shift. Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). The Family Man (2000). Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002) brought another Oscar nomination, for a pair of Kaufman brothers. National Treasure (2004) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) made him a family-matinee archaeologist of the Constitution. Lord of War (2005). The Wicker Man (2006) became a joke the internet still tells; he took the part. Ghost Rider (2007) and its sequel. Knowing (2009). Kick-Ass (2010). The IRS, around 2009, put liens on a man who had bought castles, comics, and houses as if the next picture would always pay for the last impulse. He sold properties. He kept working. The work, for a stretch, was the payment plan.
David Gordon Green’s Joe (2013) is a serious room in the middle of the bill-paying years. Panos Cosmatos’s Mandy (2018) is grief as a fever and a color. Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space (2019), from Lovecraft, let him play a father the sky has already ruined. Michael Sarnoski’s Pig (2021) is a man looking for a truffle hog in Portland and, without speeches, for a life. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) put him opposite Pedro Pascal as a version of the cartoon, then asked the cartoon to sit down. Kristoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario (2023) made him a mild professor who appears in strangers’ dreams. Osgood Perkins’s Longlegs (2024) put him in a serial-killer picture people actually went to see. The Surfer (2024) sent him to an Australian beach that will not let him stay. He has not become scarce. He has become, again, specific, while still delivering the year almost no one else will attempt.
The nephew who would not use Coppola on the card still had to live in a town that knew the uncle. Valley Girl was the first public door. 1987 was two complete careers in one calendar. Leaving Las Vegas is the statue. The action pictures are the second job, not a fall from it. The tax file is arithmetic. Joe, Mandy, Pig, Dream Scenario are rooms he reopened while still working the other shift. He never became rare. He became specific again. Long Beach is the certificate. The Oscar is on the shelf. The next title is already in the weather. He is living. He has not asked anyone to pick one face.
Six things most people never knew
- The birth name is Nicolas Kim Coppola. Long Beach, January 7, 1964. August taught literature. Joy danced. The uncle is Francis. The point of Cage was not to hide the family. It was not to invoice it.
- Luke Cage and John Cage are the named sources. A Marvel hero and a composer. The credits said Cage long before the legal paper finished agreeing.
- 1987 is two complete careers in one calendar. Raising Arizona and Moonstruck. A Coen farce and a Jewison romance. Either would have been a door.
- Leaving Las Vegas is the statue. The action pictures are the second job, not a fall from it. He took the money and the yell on purpose. Adaptation proves he did not forget the other instrument.
- The tax file is real. Liens, sold houses, a decade in which the next role was also a bill. The volume in those years is not only appetite. It is arithmetic.
- Pig and Mandy are not comebacks so much as rooms he reopened while still working the other shift. He never became rare. He became specific again.
He married Patricia Arquette in 1995. That marriage ended in 2001. In 2002 he married Lisa Marie Presley; the union lasted months. He married Alice Kim in 2004; their son, Kal-El, was born in 2005; they divorced in 2016. A 2019 marriage to Erika Koike was annulled within days. In 2021 he married Riko Shibata; their daughter, August Francesca, was born in 2022. Weston, born in 1990 to Christina Fulton, is the eldest. The household has been, at different addresses, a large and public ledger. Friends from early sets describe a worker who prepared like a scholar and then played as if the camera were a dare. Both the scholar and the dare are the life.
The later years
They are not a sunset. They are the volume continuing after the culture decided it had finished understanding him. He still takes the strange part, the comic-book part, the grief part, the part that looks like a paycheck until the close-up arrives. Home, in these years, has been a working actor’s calendar more than a single civic address: Los Angeles when the job is there, locations when it is not, a marriage to Riko Shibata beginning in 2021, a daughter, August Francesca, born in 2022, sons Weston and Kal-El already in the file. He is living. He is working at a rate that makes a filmography into a kind of weather: you do not wait for the next Cage picture; you are already between two.
Dream Scenario (2023) is a mild man made monstrous by other people’s sleep. Longlegs (2024) is a performance people argued about in the lobby. The Surfer (2024) is a father on a beach who cannot get back to the water. Those rooms sit beside titles that will not be taught, and he does not apologize for the mix. The tax years taught him that a still camera and a closed door do not pay a lien. The serious rooms taught him that the yell was never the only instrument. He produces as well as acts. He shows up. The Coppola table remains a dynasty. His chair at it is the one labeled Cage. Long Beach is still on the certificate. The next picture is already on a call sheet. That is what a living last chapter looks like when the man will not become scarce.
Long Beach is still the certificate. The uncle’s name is still in the family tree. The Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas is still on the shelf. The cartoon is still available for hire. So is the man who made Pig. He has not asked anyone to pick one. He is in his sixties. He is adding titles. Weston, born in 1990 to Christina Fulton, is the eldest. Kal-El, born in 2005 to Alice Kim, carries a comic-book name his father has never been shy about. August Francesca is the newest. The household has been, at different addresses, a large and public ledger. This page will not invent a death date or a farewell tour. The last chapter, for a living man, is the job he is still doing: a nephew who would not invoice the family name, a statue, a payment plan, and a second run of specific rooms that the cheap seats were not told to expect. The spotlight did not leave. It split. He is still standing in both beams.
After the spotlight moved
It did not move. It split. One beam stayed on the yell and the leather. The other found the quiet pictures a certain kind of viewer now uses as the real file. Younger actors who treat eccentricity as a brand are in a house he built by accident and then had to live in. The Coppola table remains a dynasty. His chair at it is the one labeled Cage.
He came out of Long Beach, put down the uncle’s name, made a Valley punk into a lead, did a Coen farce and a Cher romance in the same year, won an Oscar for a man who wanted to die in Las Vegas, became an action object, paid a tax bill with a filmography, reopened the serious rooms without closing the loud ones, married often, raised children, and is still adding titles. If you only remember the yell, you have the still. If you remember the refusal of the surname, the statue, and the man looking for a hog, you have him.
Portrait: Georges Biard · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons