It looks like we can add another name to the list of famous Star Trek fans: Nicolas Cage. The Oscar-winning actor has declared himself a Trekkie and rejected the idea of appearing in that other “Star” franchise.
Trek Cage
In the 2022 film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Nicolas Cage co-starred with Pedro Pascal, star of The Mandalorian, who told a reporter for Yahoo he wanted to recruit Cage into the Star Wars franchise. But when Yahoo brought this idea to Cage, the actor rejected it, saying “No is the answer. I’m not really down [for Star Wars].” Cage went on to explain how he prefers a different franchise:
I’m a Trekkie, man. I’m on the Star Trek. I’m on the Enterprise. That’s where I roll… That’s a fact. I grew up watching [William] Shatner. I thought [Chris] Pine was terrific in the movies. I think the movies are outstanding.
The veteran actor got specific about why he loves Star Trek:
To me what science fiction is really all about and why it is such an important genre is that it is really where you can say whatever you want, however, you feel, you put it on a different planet, you put it in a different time, in the future, and you can without people really jumping on you. You can really express your thoughts like [George] Orwell or whomever, in the science fiction format. And Star Trek really embraced that. I thought that they got into some serious stuff.
Cage’s comments articulate a key component of Star Trek to use the format to tell allegorical and topical stories, which began with its creation by Gene Roddenberry. Cage made his comments during a promotional interview for his new film The Old Way. You can watch it below via Yahoo’s Kevin Polowy on Twitter.
Nicolas Cage does not want to be in The Mandalorian or the Star Wars universe (sorry, Pedro Pascal).
"I'm a Trekkie. That's where I roll… I'm not in the Star Wars family. I'm in the Star Trek family." pic.twitter.com/958e7picw4
— Kevin Polowy (@djkevlar) January 7, 2023
So add Nicolas Cage’s name to other high-profile actors who have expressed a love for Trek, along with Tom Hanks, James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Rosario Dawson, Mila Kunis, and Daniel Craig. Maybe one day he can follow in the footsteps of other famous fans like Whoopi Goldberg or Karl Urban and appear in Star Trek. Cage has been working consistently since 1981 and has two films due out this year and three next year. It sounds like given a chance, he could work Star Trek into his schedule for a potential movie (if or when Paramount Pictures gets moving again) or maybe even for one of the Paramount+ TV shows.
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Nick Cage won’t have to worry about this anytime soon….
Ooo! Be the first to comment so you can crap on a living legend!
I’m not sure that the fact there isn’t a Trek movie in production, now or in the immediate future, has on any assesment of Mr. Cage’s talent, but okay….
I’d love to see him as a character in a movie or a potential Trek show.
Please, don’t make him the star of the show if he’s playing a supporting character.
Eddie Murphy wanted to be in a Star Trek movie. TVH, if I recall directly.
It would have made Murphy the star or Trek IV, and Shatner and Nimoy would have had to accept supporting roles.
Robin Williams was a HUGE Star Trek Fan. I saw his live action shows and he even worked Tuvok into his act
Yeah, Eddie in IV would have been the equivalent of casting Richard Pryor in Superman III. It would have been funny in parts, but the leads might have taken backseat.
Bring back the Tarantino Trek movie and put Cage in it!
Here’s a better thought: hire directors and actors who would be a good fit for Star Trek.
Tarantino could make a great Trek movie. I’m not a Nicholas Cage fan, but I don’t see why he would not fit into Trek in the right role.
Agreed. And if the movie is supposed to be like A Piece of the Action, I definitely think there could be a role for Cage.
In the end, I probably don’t want to see a Tarantino Trek film get made (and it’s very unlikely he’d personally direct it in any case). But I’d sell what’s left of my soul to read the script.
This is exactly how I feel! Don’t want the movie, would kill to read the script.
No thanks.
Especially so as Cage was able, a few brief sentences, to demonstrate that he understands what the franchise can offer much more than Tarantino ever has in all his public statements about wanting to do a Trek movie.
Maybe he could get that uncle of his to direct a Trek film or TV episode he appears in. I hear he’s pretty good.
Which would brings things full circle, since he was high on the wish list for TMP. He could definitely put the opera in space opera. I like his work for hire stuff some of the time, but it isn’t in the exalted realm of 70s glory.
Actually I just read in The Hollywood Reporter how badly FFC’s big decades in development genre pic is going, so we probably don’t need (to pinch from David Gerrold) SPOCKALYPSE NOW. He canned his whole VFX team and key members of the art dept in mid-shoot and apparently abandoned a virtual production strategy a la MANDALORIAN in favor of traditional less credible greenscreen approach. I’ve always admired how when it came down to it he would put his money where his mouth is and he is self-financing this 120 mil flick, but it sounds like he doesn’t have anything left to sell off to get it done.
That doesn’t sound good, but the trade press has written him off before. In the end, for all of his disappointments, I’d stand in Coppola’s corner any day before the Hollywood Reporter’s.
FWIW, another take:
https://deadline.com/2023/01/francis-ford-coppola-no-truth-to-apocalypse-on-megalopolis-
1235216222/#respond
Thanks, Michael, that does seem to spin things back.
I think FFC’s script for PATTON was phenomenal, and I thought his GATSBY script seemed okay too (I’m still not sure exactly what is the thing that makes the 70s version difficult to watch; I like most of the cast except Mia Farrow, and I like the director a lot.) Of his ‘own’ films, I like CONVERSATION and APOCALYPSE best, then THE RAIN PEOPLE, but also found TUCKER sorta worthwhile. I’ve had a dvd of YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH for years but never watched it; I did see and enjoy TWIXT, but barely remember it. I think those were two of his three more recent self-financed films, but won’t swear to that.
I’d really like to see a detailed breakdown on some of FFC’s uncredited work; he did some rewriting on NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN as a favor to his brother-in-law producing it, and he spent several months trying to ‘fix’ SUPERNOVA in postproduction (and he wasn’t the only one; Jack Sholder worked on it too, along with somebody else, after Walter Hill walked away, then walked back, apparently before turning his back on it forever.)
Well, THE COTTON CLUB, TUCKER, PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (which Ellison considered BACK TO THE FUTURE done right) and the two S.E. Hinton adaptations are all second-tier Coppola that I nevertheless consider very watchable. (RUMBLE FISH, in particular, is a visual and auditory blast that’s a really distinctive take on the source material.) And yeah, I even have a little love on days ending in “Y” for BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, too. I’m not proud. 😝
PEGGY SUE wins just for the John Barry score alone with me, which somehow overcomes Cage’s presence.
And we watch BS DRAC every year, just cuz it looks and sounds good (though again, male lead issue, with Keanu’s voice. There was a character on RESCUE ME called White Sean and the actor — don’t know his name but he was charming on the show, the firefighter thought of heaven as a place where when you just thought about wanting something you would suddenly be ‘quenched — did a phenomenal impression of Keanu’s Harker, delivering, ‘is the castle far?’ in Reeves’ ‘special’ way that turned us to jelly.
And I will admit it … I was there opening day for ONE FROM THE HEART. (I say that with the same blushing honesty that lets me make a similar claim about HUDSON HAWK.) Felt that independent artist making his film on his own terms (and those of whatever banks he relied upon) mandated support … at least till the movie started. I found it immensely painful for the most part, but it had some very ingenious visuals, and the moment when Frederick Forrest starts singing a capella actually worked for me, though not for anybody else in the theater, that much was certain.
Even though Forrest’s voice is a bit weak, I still think he’d have been one of the better Decker’s out of the ones Wise had in for TMP — I think Tim Thomerson, Forrest and Andy Robinson all could have brought more gusto to it than Stephen Collins, who often came off like a limp ineffective version of the ‘youthful antagonist type’ that Wise had with William Atherton in HINDENBURG (come to think of it, Atherton against Shatner might have also worked, as this was before Atherton’s career seemed to turn into a one-note reprisal of his GHOSTBUSTERS baddie.)
Well, both GODFATHERs were technically work for hire, and since they make up 50% of FFC’s bona fide masterpieces I’d say that worked out pretty well. That said, there have been few trips to the movies that depressed me more than his Grisham adaptation — not because it particularly bad, but because it was so generic that any competent director could have helmed it with almost identical results.
“I love the smell of photon torpedoes in the morning” :)))
About a mile out, we’ll turn on the music.
music?
Use Goldsmith, Intimidates hell out of the Horners.
You two scamps!
No.
No, no, no.
For the love of god, no.
This guy is such a terrible actor, so no.
Please keep him as far from Star Trek as possible.
No.
Loved Raising Arizona. One of my favorites.
Mine too. It still is vividly in my mind.
He’s a good actor for the right material. And he could be an excellent fit for an allegorical Trek story.
Huh???
Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, Adaptation, Face/off, Peggy Sue Got Married, Pig, Moonstruck, The Rock, Matchstick Men.
He’s a national treasure (pun intended)!
Agreed!
Is his favorite episode “The Cage”? I’ve always seen him as a modern-day Jimmy Stewart i.e., the Everyman character.
Any actor who can lead the action heyday trifecta of the 90s like Con Air, The Rock and FaceOff is a good actor in my book.
Geez how do you really feel? The box office numbers alone would justify it.
It’s terrific to hear someone’s a Trekkie, but if they use that to say they dislike anything else, I start to wonder if they have really understood Trek and IDIC.
Yeah, you can like both. No reason to be fanatical about one’s devotion.
Sorry, but what fanaticism is on display in his comments? He said he’s a Trekkie and appreciates what sci-fi can do, that’s it.
More directed at folks who take a hard line between franchises. Cage’s phrasing does have a zero/sum ring to it, but at the end of the day he’s allowed to have his preferences. It’s cool to like one space saga and not the other, but it’s kinda weird to feel devotion to one means you can’t like the other. It’s like marvel vs. Dc. Never understood why I had to pick a side.
I see. Yeah, me too. Like what you like. That us vs. them stuff is silly tribalism.
Exactly my thought. I like both. I don’t love Wars the way I love Trek but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy both and many more franchises.Trek is Number One, Who is Number Two, the Wookie is at Three :-)
You can still respectfully dislike something and be a Trekkie. IDIC simply means tolerating differences, not that everything should be liked. “Praise of everything is praise of nothing.”
Seriously?
He’s got good taste.
Lt. Castor Troy, having his face replaced with that of Capt. Chris Pike and vice versa. Exciting violence and explosions ensue
Nick should be the new Scotty
So he either plays a Vulcan to ensure a restrained performance or he plays Nero’s vengeful brother to justify his unrestrained performance.
Or… He pulls it back, puts it together and pulls off something genius like Matt Dekker.
Guess it’s down to triangulating a script and director.
Make the Doomsday Machine movie. Make that giant ice cream cone so strong that it rips open reality and mainstream fans care about the meaningful connection between the Kelvinverse and the Prime timeline.
God, just don’t shoehorn him in there.
I could also see him as Garth of Izar.
The world would be a better place if more people watched Star Trek.
Captain Kirk gets ALL the women…even the ugly ones….
They can use Cage in that episode where Kirk splits into two people and starts boozing. He has much experience in that area from Leaving Las Vegas.
He’d make a great, theatrical villain.
Shoulda been the Picard S3 villain.
All these famous Trekkie celebrities and actors and they still can’t get most of them to appear in Trek in some way. I would have thought Tom Hanks and Rosario Dawson would have appeared by now.
Hanks was supposed to be Zefram Cochrane. But I don’t think he would have been as good as Cromwell was.
I’ll always be a Trekker,but I do enjoy a lot of the other shows and movies as well. Especially Who and SW,and horror.
Nic Cage in Star Trek? Yes, please! I myself am a Trekkie and a Starwoid.
Hmm, well if he wants to guest on Discovery or Strange New, he’ll have to reinvent himself as a Canadian television actor or David Cronenberg.
well they literally named the pilot after him…
Starring Nic Cage…in The Cage. Good one.
Yes! But he needs to be in a role where he’s instantly recognisable, not wasted under tons of latex like Idris Elba in Star Trek Beyond.
Many Idris Elba fans had no clue he was in that film!
That’s very sweet. I appreciate when people that matter appreciate Star Trek. But I have never gotten why there has to be a fight between Trek and Wars. Just like I don’t get why there has to be a fight between the DCU or whatever its called now and the MCU. You are allowed to like both, you know?
Starring Nic Cage as Sybok…the laughing Vulcan.
You know, I was just literally thinking about this and I can see it. If they ever want to use Sybok for one of the movies again Cage has my vote and he can go full crazy Cage in the role.
Nice I think he will make an exaclinte Gust Star as a Starfleet Captain or even a Klingon the dude as Huge Level of Acting
My inner Mind Cinema Eye see Nicholas Cage being part of the “Admiral Jelico” group. But not as “Bad Admiral” like in Into Darkness
“You want something from my Crew and Ships? Not under my Watch!”
Or a younger Captain Jellico.
Pike needs to be contrasted with one of those.
Nick Cage for Captain Garth.
Great idea.
He’d make a pretty good Mudd.
He’d have made a great Matt Decker…. BUT NOT ANYMORE!
Okay. He still would. Just riffing off Windom’s mentally broken, off-kilter line delivery.