Crazy true facts about Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage definitely isn't the actor you cast as the boring old "everyman" character, but that's exactly why his fan base loves him. While so many people hide their eccentricities from the world, Cage applies his quirky style to every job he takes. He brings the same intensity to every performance, whether he's playing a depressed screenwriter (and his identical twin brother) in an Academy Award-winning film, or screaming about how much he hates bees ("Not the bees! Aggghhh!") in a B-grade horror remake. Say what you will about Nicolas Cage, but that guy never phones it in. Ever.


Even in the real world, Cage is quite a character. Despite being in the public eye for most of his life, Cage has never shown any qualms about discussing his weirder interests, experiences, and lifestyle choices, and for that, he deserves credit. It takes effort to be weird, but not many people are bold enough to be so publicly weird. We won't claim he's a vampire, like some have, but he's definitely one unique dude.

He bought a real dinosaur skull

This sounds like a prank, an exaggeration, a threat someone makes on April Fools' Day. But Nicolas Cage did lay down the winning bid of over $270,000 on the gargantuan, prehistoric skull of a Tyrannosaurus bataar, according to Vanity Fair. Why did he want a dinosaur skull? Who knows, maybe he was hoping to turn it into a crazy-cool bed frame, a la the Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok. Cage wasn't the only rich guy bidding on the skull either. One of his top competitors was apparently fellow actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Anyway, dropping cash on bizarre items is kind of Cage's thing, as we'll see. Unfortunately for him, the dinosaur skull purchase didn't turn out so well. Six years later, Cage got the depressing news that his prized skull wasn't really his: The seller, a guy named Eric Prokopi, had stolen the skull from the Gobi desert in Mongolia, according to the New York Times. Obviously, the theft wasn't Cage's fault, but the actor amiably agreed to give the skull back to the original owners. All in all, this whole scam just goes to show why you should never trust an independent dinosaur skull retailer, no matter how trustworthy their website looks.


His cat ate his shrooms, so he ate some to keep the cat company

House cats are neurotic enough without adding hallucinogens to the mix. What do you do if you accidentally leave your magic mushrooms lying around and your feline friend licks them right up?

This sounds like a big "oops," but if you love animals as much as Nicolas Cage, you might be inclined to join them in the experience. According to The Guardian, Cage explained to David Letterman in 2010 that when his cat, Lewis, gobbled up the actor's mushrooms as if they were catnip, Cage decided the only moral thing to do was take mushrooms with him, to provide companionship. Cage told Letterman, "I remember lying in my bed for hours, and Lewis was on the desk across from the bed for hours, staring at each other … not moving. But he would stare at me." Evidently, Cage and Lewis bonded over this shared experience, with Cage saying that after going through it, "I had no doubt that he was my brother." No word on whether they've tried it again since.


He invented his own acting style, 'Nouveau Shamanic'

If you've ever watched a Nicolas Cage film — and if you're here, you probably have — then you know how invested he gets in every role. According to the AV Club, he gets into the heads of his characters by using a self-created acting discipline he calls "Nouveau Shamanic," as a tribute to the shamans of ancient history. For example, when preparing himself for Ghost Rider, Cage's Nouveau Shamanic approach was to apply "Afro-Caribbean paint" and put on a costume composed of priceless Egyptian artifacts to evoke the feeling of being an extra-dimensional spirit. Cage knows his approach is weird, but says it's "all semantics."

Later, Cage clarified to LA Weekly that Nouveau Shamanic wasn't something he really invented: It was inspired by a book titled The Way of the Actor, which described how, thousands of years ago, "the medicine men or the tribal shamans were really actors. What they would do is they would act out whatever the issues were with the villagers at that time, they would act it out and try to find the answers or go into a trance or go into another dimension, which is really just the imagination, and try to pull back something that would reflect the concerns of the group." So basically, Cage's approach to acting is intended as a tribute to customs from a bygone era.

He's been stalked by both a mime and a naked fudgesicle eater

Most major celebrities get followed by creepy fans, but not surprisingly, Nicolas Cage has the weirdest stalker stories around. In an interview with Parade, Cage said when he was filming Bringing Out the Dead, he became unsettled by the random appearance of a silent performer in a mime costume. Evidently, the mime somehow got past security and kept doing strange antics on the set. Cage clearly got a bad vibe from the mime, saying, "I guess it would fall into the stalker category, more or less." Apparently, the producers were similarly weirded out, and ordered the mime removed. He never came back — as far as anyone knows, anyway.


This isn't the only invasive encounter Cage has experienced. According to Reuters, Cage said in 2011 he endured a home invasion and had been awoken at 2 a.m. by a naked man standing at the foot of his bed, wearing nothing but Cage's leather jacket and licking a fudgesicle. Cage stayed calm, talked the guy into leaving his house and didn't press charges. So even when Cage himself isn't being odd, odd things seem to happen to him.

He's owned some wild properties

Ever want to live in a castle? So did Cage, so he bought a real castle in the German state of Bavaria, according to People. Cage was interested in establishing a residence in Bavaria anyway, since his mother's ancestors originated from the region, and as soon as he saw the castle (which is named Schloss Neidstein), he fell in love, explaining, "I liked the architecture and the gigantic forest." You could just buy an old Victorian house in northern Maine, but hey.

Cage's astonishing real estate purchases don't end there. According to Variety, Cage also once owned a private, 45-acre island in the Bahamas, though he sold it in 2008. On top of that, Vanity Fair says he also once owned the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans, which previously housed 19th-century serial killer Delphine LaLaurie, the villain played by Kathy Bates on American Horror Story. Cage bought the residence, which he calls "the most haunted house in America," to write a horror novel. "I didn't get too far with the novel," he admitted.

Read More