Nicolas Cage Losing [It]<\/a>.\u201d Somebody had cherry-picked all these freakout scenes and cobbled them together without any regard for how the character got to that level of crisis. And then it started going viral, exponentially growing, and became memes.<\/p>\nI was confused, I was frustrated and I was stimulated. I thought, \u201cMaybe this will compel someone to go look at the actual movie and see how the character got to that moment,\u201d but on the other hand, I was like, \u201cThis isn\u2019t what I had in mind when I decided to become a film actor.\u201d I had that feeling of weight for years, and when I read \u201cDream Scenario,\u201d I said, \u201cFinally I can do something with these feelings, and I can apply them to Paul Matthews.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul isn\u2019t sure why he\u2019s gone viral in people\u2019s dreams, but at first, he\u2019s flattered by the attention. When you first started experiencing fame, was it that same sort of thrill?<\/strong><\/p>\nGosh, it\u2019s been so long. I started acting professionally, I think, when I was 15. I wasn\u2019t into film performance for fame or accolades, so the first few times it started to happen with autographs, I was confused how to receive it. I almost felt ashamed of being happy that someone wanted my autograph, like, \u201cWell, that\u2019s a pride thing. That\u2019s not why I\u2019m in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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What\u2019s interesting is I don\u2019t wake up in the morning and say to myself, \u201cOh, I\u2019m famous.\u201d I sometimes still meet people and they\u2019re acting a bit different, and I think, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong? What did I do?\u201d And I go, \u201cOh, they saw me in a movie.\u201d But more than ever, I know not to go out now if I\u2019m not in a good mood. I just stay home. I don\u2019t want to blow somebody\u2019s day because I was in a bad mood and didn\u2019t sign every autograph.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Paul isn\u2019t necessarily looking for the limelight, but there is a part of him that wants to be published and validated. The desire to be recognized somehow motivates a lot of people \u2014 including actors, I would think.<\/strong><\/p>\nIf you want to be famous, make money, get an award, that\u2019s OK, but that\u2019s only going to get you so far. Sure, it\u2019s nice to be regarded. Like Gary Oldman said, the sound of applause is never to be taken lightly, and gosh knows I\u2019ve had enough tomatoes. But the point of it all is telling a story and having it connect with your audience, where they\u2019re in on that secret with you, where they felt like they had an experience.<\/p>\n
As Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s nephew, you grew up adjacent to fame. What was your impression of fame before you experienced it yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\nI remember once going to the theater in San Francisco to see \u201cAll That Jazz\u201d with my uncle. As he was walking down the street, I was lagging, and everyone was saying, \u201cFrancis Coppola. Francis Coppola. Francis Coppola.\u201d I thought, \u201cOK, that\u2019s what\u2019s fame is: People whisper your name when you pass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you still think fame is like that?<\/strong><\/p>\nWell, when my first son was really little, he used to call me \u201cNicolas Cage,\u201d so he must have heard it from people. He didn\u2019t call me \u201cDad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Can you relate to Paul\u2019s experience going to a restaurant, where he can sense that people are staring at him and trying to snap covert pictures?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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I\u2019ll take every picture. I wouldn\u2019t go to a restaurant unless I was able to meet people well and be thankful that they liked the movie. I\u2019m comfortable with it now, but when I was a kid, I had to learn how to get there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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People are eager to pull out their phones around Paul, hoping to catch a viral moment that could help them piggyback off his own notoriety. That\u2019s a very new wrinkle on fame.<\/strong><\/p>\nAnd very real. I\u2019ve had things happen to me where I go to a bar in Sin City on a Saturday, and I have no idea that someone\u2019s videotaping me and it goes on TikTok. It\u2019s like, \u201cOK, no more bars for me, man.\u201d But it\u2019s a new world. And that\u2019s another reason I like this movie: It\u2019s relevant. This is the way it is in the 21st century. This isn\u2019t the way it was when Bogart was making movies.<\/p>\n
I wonder if we aren\u2019t accelerating toward a point where people say, \u201cLook, there\u2019s just too much information in too many of our heads at too many moments of the day.\u201d Certainly, \u201cDream Scenario\u201d is addressing that sort of collective subconsciousness, but the desire to unplug from it sometimes feels so overwhelming.<\/strong><\/p>\nAlan Moore, the great graphic novelist, said we\u2019re going to a place where information is going to be deployed so fast that eventually we\u2019re all just going to become steam. But the thing is, Kyle, we have to evolve, we have to progress. This is the way it is, and it\u2019s staying. I shudder to think what\u2019s next. Is it going to be in a chip in our brains? I don\u2019t know. But whatever it is, we\u2019re evolving, and I want to find a way to work with it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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You\u2019ve been working lately with a lot of emerging filmmakers, like Kristoffer Borgli and Michael Sarnoski, who directed \u201cPig.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nThat, I am so grateful for. I always knew that it would take a young filmmaker who would have grown up with me in some way saying, \u201cI want to try this,\u201d and I have the humility to say, \u201cYou\u2019re half my age and you\u2019re twice as intelligent, I\u2019m going to give you the controls.\u201d But it\u2019s interesting to be rediscovered by someone from a different generation. I think they haven\u2019t had their dreams whipped out of them yet. They\u2019re still full of potential and imagination of what they can accomplish, and that keeps me fertile.<\/p>\n
When you were starring in blockbuster studio films, were your representatives keen to keep you there instead of indies?<\/strong><\/p>\nThat was the deal, that I was always going to go back to the well of independent drama, my roots. With the bigger movies, there\u2019s too many cooks in the kitchen, too many people giving you notes. But with an experience like \u201cDream Scenario,\u201d I\u2019m with my director and we have the floor and we\u2019re experimenting together. It\u2019s important to have that intimacy to get to the really truthful expression of film performance. That\u2019s harder to do on a big movie.<\/p>\n
What did you get out of your blockbuster leading-man era?<\/strong><\/p>\nIt was a dream come true. I was told, \u201cYou can\u2019t do it. You don\u2019t look like one of those guys. What makes you think you can pull it off?\u201d I said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m a student and I think I can try this and learn something from it. It\u2019s going to be a challenge. Let\u2019s see if it works.\u201d Well, it worked maybe a little too well, and I got in that cycle. But at the time when I was doing these adventure films, it was considered not the done thing. My agent was saying, \u201cYou\u2019re an actor\u2019s actor. Why do you want to do that?\u201d Because I never did it before! Keep it eclectic, keep it challenging.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Something you\u2019re not keen to do, though, is engage with social media.<\/strong><\/p>\nI\u2019m not on any social media. I don\u2019t want to tweet, I don\u2019t want to be on Instagram or TikTok. That\u2019s largely because I feel like that\u2019s the only way I could stay close to a certain golden-age idea of what a film actor should maybe be, where you didn\u2019t have that much access. Jack Nicholson refused to go on talk shows.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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You\u2019re not afraid of going on talk shows.<\/strong><\/p>\nI personally think talk shows are a great interview, because you can get the tone, you can get the flavor, you can get the nuance expressed. You don\u2019t have to worry that it\u2019s going to be misinterpreted. That now is the danger, clickbait: You say something and then that gets transmogrified into something you didn\u2019t say, and then suddenly that becomes your truth.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to walk on eggshells and keep editing myself because I want to give you an authentic interview, and I want that to be enjoyable for your readers. But there\u2019s a dance there. I know something\u2019s going to get cherry-picked and cobbled together, and they\u2019re going to take it and say I said something I didn\u2019t say. But can you imagine if John Lennon gave an interview today, what would happen?<\/p>\n
If you reread magazine interviews from a few decades ago, it\u2019s astonishing how candid celebrities were willing to be.<\/strong><\/p>\nI do think people genuinely enjoy authenticity, just like they feel a connection with a performance that feels real to them. But again, we\u2019re in this time where it will get repurposed. That sometimes happens to me, and we know the reason behind it: The clickbait sells. But I am going to choose to stay authentic, and I\u2019m not going to let it get in the way of us having a conversation that is stimulating in some way. I just can\u2019t let that happen. I don\u2019t want to live in fear of that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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