Nicolas Cage is entering his goth era. In a new Los Angeles Times profile, the veteran actor discussed his appearances in last summer’s Pig, the upcoming The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent — and his pet crow, Hoogan.
“He has taken to calling me names,” Cage said of Hoogan, who lives in a geodesic dome in the actor’s Las Vegas home. “When I leave the room, he’ll say, ‘Bye,’ and then go, ‘Ass.’”
It may come as a surprise that your average street bird can talk like a parrot, but according to Cage, “Crows are very intelligent. And I like their appearance, the Edgar Allan Poe aspect. I like the goth element. I am a goth.”
He also has a cat, Merlin, a 4-year-old Maine Coon that he says several times is his “best friend,” as well as another cat, Teegra, who “doesn’t give a shit.” Oh, and a new wife, Riko Shibata, with whom he’ll soon be celebrating his first anniversary. “I’m really happily married. I know five [times] is a lot,” he said, “but I think I got it right this time.”
Of course, if you do some research, you’ll find that Cage has always been a bit of a goth (though a true dark prince would know Poe wrote of ravens, not crows). He played a man certain he was a vampire in 1989’s Vampire’s Kiss, and in 2012, he had to convince the Internet that he wasn’t a bloodsucker himself. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the actor — sorry, the thespian — is set to portray Dracula in the upcoming film Renfield.
When it comes to the dreaded count, Cage is most excited about his physical life. “The key, I think, is movement,” he said. “I saw a movie called Malignant and the director James Wan and the actress [Annabelle Wallis] created this choreography that was terrifying. So I’m hoping to do something like that where Dracula can either glide or move like Sadako in Ringu.”
Relive Cage’s gothification by revisiting our ranking of his 15 most essential films.
