Nicolas Cage Says He Didn't Buy A Batcave, But He Did Check Out Some Cave Real Estate
Nicolas Cage went on a national talk show for (by his count) the first time in fourteen years this week, and the results were exactly as delightful as you might expect. The actor appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" to promote his new meta-comedy, "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," and was kind enough to confirm and deny some of the wackiest rumors about him while he was there.
Dressed in a snazzy suit meant to invoke "brushed aluminum on a dashboard of an old Cadillac," the actor was totally game to play along with Kimmel's questions. After confirming that he once owned a two-headed snake, currently owns an occasionally foul-mouthed African pied crow, and once won and donated a good chunk of change at the roulette tables, the actor turned to the topic of caves. Naturally!
This particular story came from Cage's "National Treasure" costar, Diane Kruger, who visited Kimmel's show a few weeks ago and said the actor "bought a bat cave" during filming. Check out the full clip below!
Nic Cage: artist, performer, spelunker?
In his own Kimmel appearance, Cage set the record straight about the bat cave. The context for the story is about as wonderfully odd as expected. The actor says that at one point he had a plan to explore all the elements: for water, he learned to dive in the Great Barrier Reef; for air, he considered hang-gliding; and for fire, he made the movie "Ghost Rider." "For Earth, I thought, 'Yeah, I want to start spelunking. I want to start exploring caves,'" Cagetold Kimmel.
The actor says he heard about a cave for sale while on location in the Black Hills of the Dakotas, as one does. He visited the cave, which he describes as having "all these stalagmites ... all like milky quartz, like crystalline walls." Cage revealed that the caves were so atmospheric and lovely, he wanted to "buy this and just go down in the bottom of the cave and get totally naked with my wife and drink nigori [sake]. In the bottom of a cave in the earth."
Cage is an excellent storyteller, so it came as a genuine surprise to hear that, in the end, he didn't buy the cave and live his sake-soaked dreams after all. He did, however, apparently spend a night in Dracula's castle and get stalked by a pair of mimes. While none of these facts are especially relevant to his upcoming movie, they all tie in to the ever-present cultural myth of Nic Cage, which surely informed the movie's version of him, Nick Cage. Bat cave or not, this is one of the most entertaining late night interviews we've seen in ages.
"The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" is in theaters now.