In case you’re not caught up, we are on the brink of a Nicolas Cage Renaissance. He’s paid off all his debts to the IRS, he seems to believe Wife #5 Riko Shibata is the One, and his upcoming comedy, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, is getting an actual theatrical release and early rave reviews. Nic is currently filming another movie in New Orleans (awww, his future final resting place!), the horror-comedy Renfield. Renfield is a supporting character in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula. He’s the vampire’s bonkers, brainwashed lackey who loves to eat bugs. Nicholas Hoult will play Renfield and Nicolas Cage will play Dracula. People has the first on-set photos, and if the Renfield creative team is attempting to serve retro 1930s movie monster, a la Bela Lugosi, they have succeeded.
Here’s Nic Cage as Dracula:
NIC CAGE DRACULA NIC CAGE DRACULA pic.twitter.com/8P6hXxw43m
— Luke (@qLxke_) March 23, 2022
The white Halloween makeup, long fingernails, clunky costume jewelry, red velvet suit; I’m obsessed. And has any actor’s natural hairline ever been more perfect for Count Dracula? I think not. In December Nicolas told Variety’s Awards Circuit podcast that he prepared for the role by studying the different onscreen Draculas, via Variety:
“I looked at Bela Lugosi’s performance, and then I looked at Frank Langella’s performance,” Cage said of the 1931 and 1979 films. And of course there’s Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 version — Coppola is Cage’s uncle. “I looked at Gary’s performance in my uncle’s movie, which I think it’s just so sumptuous. Every frame is a work of art,” he said.
He added that he wants to do “something new” with the character, and hit the perfect tone of comedy and horror:
“I want it to pop in a unique way from how we’ve seen it played,” he noted. “So I’m thinking to really focus on the movement of the character. You know, I saw ‘Malignant’ and I thought what she did with those moves — and even ‘Ringu’ with Sadako [Yamamura] … I want to look at what we can explore with this movement and voice.”
In this week’s GQ interview, Nic added that he’s channeling his late father, August Coppola. He’s also dieting so he can resemble David Bowie’s Thin White Duke persona. So lemme get this straight: Nic is starving himself, evoking the spirit of his dead dad, and experimenting with voice and movement? Yep, this is gonna be an absolutely fucking bonkers performance.
Pic: INSTAR