By Maia Venuti
Staff Writer
If you know anything about the career of actor Nicolas Cage, then you probably know that there has been a debate on whether or not he is a good actor for decades now. It feels like an age old question: is Cage a bad actor, or is he a great actor who consistently takes bad roles?
With the newest Cage flick “Dream Scenario” being met with glowing reviews, it is becoming clearer and clearer that what I have been saying to my friends for years is true: Nicolas Cage is a good actor, he just takes a lot of poorly written roles. I want to look at three of my personal favorite Nicolas Cage films, “Moonstruck,” “Mandy” and “Pig” and illustrate exactly why Cage is so talented.
“Moonstruck” is one of Cage’s earliest films, and is a romantic comedy starring multi-talented icon, Cher. This film is only a few years short of its 40th anniversary, which not only puts into perspective just how long Cage has been present in Hollywood, but also shows that for 40 years he has been “that” guy. A young Cage plays the role of the love interest, Ronny Cammareri, the younger brother of Cher’s character, Loretta, fiance.
He is extremely charming and fits the role so well. I have seen “Moonstruck” many times throughout my life, and there are still scenes that leave me kicking my feet, giggling and blushing because of just how good he is in this role. The film's writing is terrific, and it felt like the role was written for him specifically.
“Moonstruck” shows that Cage has the range to do romantic comedies, and that he gives consistently good performances when the film is well written, as he has been doing for nearly four decades.
To jump ahead to the 2010s, as Cage’s career grew, he began to take more and more roles in more and more movies. There were a lot of reasons for this, but the primary one was that Cage was severely in debt throughout the 2000s and 2010s, owing as much as $6 million during the real estate market crash. Because Cage owed so much money, he needed to find ways to make more money to repay his debts, and did so by taking on multiple projects per year.
Recently Cage has admitted that he took poorly written roles during this time to get the money he needed, and that he knows that many of these movies are not good. But that is no fault of his own, the movies were poorly written, and no matter how hard Cage tried, sometimes there is no saving a bad script.
One of these successful projects was the brilliant revenge horror “Mandy,” which is arguably not only one of Cage’s best films, but also one of the best revenge horror films ever. Cage takes on the role of Red, a man living happily and peacefully in the forest with his partner Mandy in the 1980s. Like all horror, the happiness is short lived, and the film derails with a horrific ritualistic sacrifice leaving Red hellbent on revenge.
This film is very different from any of Cage’s other horror films. For one, it is extremely well written. Not only is the film so scary, but the way Cage’s character is written, you watch him go through the full range of emotions after the loss of his love.
His performance is raw, and you can feel the devastation, anger and the bloodlust through the screen. Just writing about the movie now makes me want to rewatch it for how good of a job he does. “Mandy” is definitively Cage’s best horror film. It is unlike any other film I have ever seen before, and it would not be the same without Nicolas Cage.
In the summer of 2021, another Cage flick came out. That is, an independent film called “Pig.” Cage plays the role of Robin, a reclusive truffle mushroom forager living in the solitude of the Oregon wilderness with his beloved companion, a truffle pig lovingly named Pig. Life seems peaceful until one day Pig is stolen, prompting Robin to re-enter society after years of isolation in a desperate search for his best friend.
This film is Cage at his absolute best, and it is my personal favorite Cage movie in his filmography of over 100 films. I have never seen a film like this, and I don’t think there will ever be anything similar to it. It is about so much more than the loss of his pet. It is about food, the culinary world, love and loss, and it covers so many different aspects of life in its under 90 minute runtime. The fact that Cage did not receive any kind of Academy recognition for what is clearly his best performance in his career felt like a robbery.
In all, if you are still on the fence about Cage as an actor, and whether or not he is a good actor who takes bad roles, watch “Moonstruck,” “Mandy” and “Pig.” These three movies are all very different from one another. Cage plays a completely different role in every film, and yet he is stupendous in every movie. Cage is one of the most talented actors of our time, and I hope that he will continue to take more well written roles over poorly written ones.
