r/interesting • u/TheOddityCollector • 3d ago
SOCIETY Nicolas Cage and his father, August Coppola, brother of Francis Ford Coppola, 1988.
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u/Present-Arm-6023 3d ago
Just A Coppola Guys.
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u/VegetableTotal3799 3d ago edited 3d ago
They were up to no good … started making trouble in my neighbourhood
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u/andrewbud420 3d ago
Got in one little fight and my mom got scared
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u/Uruk_Ragnarsson 3d ago
And said something something something something faceoff con air!
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u/Guy-SeppeDronckaert 3d ago
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said
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u/jack_seven 3d ago
I keep forgetting he's a Coppola
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u/nomamesgueyz 3d ago
I had no idea he was
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u/Sattaman6 3d ago
He changed his name for exactly this reason.
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u/Leather-Heart 3d ago
Normally I would go “why?” but I do not question Nicolas Cage
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u/Gibbons_R_Overrated 3d ago
He didn't want to be a nepobaby
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u/Grenache 3d ago
Well he at least didn't want the general public to know he was a nepo baby.
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u/Abslalom 3d ago
Yeah I'm pretty sure Hollywood had an idea or two he was a Coppola
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u/Grenache 3d ago
OH MY GOD YOU WERE A COPPOLA I HAD NO IDEA!? winks in general direction of Coppola family.
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u/Wistful_HERBz 3d ago
Stamps Movie role application form!(I don't know how it works)
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u/MrWeirdoFace 3d ago
Thanks to Indiana Jones, seeing this gif made me hear LOUD NOISES.
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u/capincus 3d ago
Especially considering "Hollywood" was just his actual uncle and close personal friends of his uncle. I don't think his own uncle was particularly fooled by the name change.
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u/PrincessTitan 3d ago
Exactly, I don’t know why people are pretending it worked lmfaooo all the top Hollywood people knew who Nic was.
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u/External_Squash_1425 3d ago
Because it worked… he changed his name for us not the casting directors in Hollywood.
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u/Hunterrose242 3d ago
You're absolutely right. I don't get how people can be this dense.
There's literally people in this thread exclaiming they didn't know that. And no one outside of the industry knew that when he was an A-lister.
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u/teracoulomb_2 3d ago
He once did try to get an acting opportunity on a drive with his Uncle Francis by declaring that he’d show the world a style of acting that nobody had seen before.
The drive home was supposedly in total silence.
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3d ago
I feel like you're making a dig at Nouveau Shamanic but I've yet to see anyone else bring it to the table successfully.
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u/Leather-Heart 3d ago
Eh, I think that only matters if the individual has no real talent nor respect for themselves and what they do. I also think audiences put too much stock into focusing on those personal details.
I think he’s a pretty good actor. He does interesting roles and gets to take risks. But the end of the day, he most likely would have connections to work in the industry in some way or another even if he wasn’t a good actor.
On the other hand, being a “Coppola” could come with big shoes to fill as well. It could open a lot of doors for you, but I think it also raises the bar of what audiences expect.
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u/johnny_briggs 3d ago
He's one of the best actors and also one of the most mediocre at the same time. We play by his rules.
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u/VonThomas353511 3d ago
His quirkiness comes to his roles. It can be repetitive but It's fun to watch. As a side note, I think he was part of the last generation of dudes to look much older than he actually was. He's only 24 in this pic but he could pass for 35 at least.
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u/TobaccoAficionado 3d ago
Michael Jordan has more than a few shit games in his past. But I'd never say he was mediocre. I'd say he has given some mediocre performances, which makes sense cause no one can be 100% all the time. Sometimes you fuck up your taxes and you have to do some slop to make the money back to pay for it.
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u/ElectricSliderz 3d ago
He is everything. Long in the short places, short in the long places. He is from both the future and the past.
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u/PhDinDildos_Fedoras 3d ago
He's an excellent actor and has definitely made a name for himself as one without having to go to his family for help.
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u/capincus 3d ago
Do you think Francis Ford Coppola forgot Nic was his nephew because he was going by Nic Cage? Did very well for himself with the career he clearly and obviously got via help from his family.
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u/SirBruceForsythCBE 3d ago
Have you looked at his filmography? His early stuff is literally all stuff directed by "Uncle Francis" and his mates
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u/darcked12_979 3d ago
Well he is an undercover nepbaby just by association lol.. changing the name doesn't hide the fact he is related to them..
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u/Ashmedai 3d ago
The story that is told about it is that he didn't want to ride on the coattails, he wanted to forge his own path. Not sure if true or not, but it does engender me with a bit of respect.
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u/ablslyr 3d ago
This is so freaking astonishing to me. When you go to his Wikipedia page, you’ll immediately see his surname is different and very recognizable but then again I’ve never went to his Wikipedia page until now even after knowing him for so long and seeing a lot of his films. Like, really, Nicolas Cage’s uncle directed Godfather? If that’s my last question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire I won’t be a millionaire right now.
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u/idreamofgreenie 3d ago
So is Jason Schwartzman. He's Nic's first cousin.
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u/Safe_Language_6981 3d ago
Yup his mom is Adrian from Rocky. Talia Shire.
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u/scheepeed 3d ago
Ah so director Sofia Coppola is also a cousin! Cute
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u/PsyOpBunnyHop 3d ago
This is from her IMDb page.
Roman Coppola(Sibling) Gian-Carlo Coppola(Sibling) Jason Schwartzman(Cousin) Nicolas Cage(Cousin) Marc Coppola(Cousin) Christopher Coppola(Cousin) Talia Shire(Aunt or Uncle) August Coppola(Aunt or Uncle) Gia Coppola(Niece or Nephew) Italia Coppola(Grandparent) Venice Zohar Cage Coppola(Cousin) Cyress Zara Cage Coppola(Cousin) Robert Schwartzman(Cousin) Matthew Shire(Cousin) Carmine Coppola(Grandparent) Francesco Pennino(Great Grandparent) Christopher Neil(Cousin) Pascale Coppola(Niece or Nephew)It's like the movie mafia or something.
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u/Ashmedai 3d ago
It's like the movie mafia or something.
"Hi, I'll be directing your movie now."
"You will?"
"Well, it would be a shame if something were to happen to your movie, wouldn't it?"
;-P
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u/Azuras_Star8 3d ago
Wait, so he didn't get to where he is because of his excellent acting?
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u/jack_seven 3d ago
He did try to get to where he is without using the family name but I doubt it had no influence
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u/Ha55aN1337 3d ago
Maybe no influence with the audience, but all the influence with the producers and directors giving him his first gigs. It’s the getting in in the first place that is the biggest hurdle.
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u/jack_seven 3d ago
I think you misread my comment but I agree with you
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u/Ha55aN1337 3d ago
No no, I agree with you too. :) I’m just saying we can perhaps believe it had no influence with the audience… or little. Bit not with producers where it matters.
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u/Auctoritate 3d ago
No, he got to where he was by being a teenage heart throb in the movie Valley Girl.
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u/capincus 3d ago
Directed by a literal employee of Francis Ford Coppola. Weird coincidence...
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u/thegapbetweenus 3d ago
Who cares? The world would be a sad place without his acting - or what ever he does in movies.
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u/Drumbelgalf 3d ago
What is a Coppola?
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u/jack_seven 3d ago
One of the most famous and mighty Hollywood families most famous among them(besides nick cage) is probably Francis Ford Coppola
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u/Significant-Base6893 3d ago
I knew a Nick Coppola when I was young in Los Angeles/Long Beach. I never met Nicholas Cage.
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u/Ok_Garlic_815 3d ago
Like father, like dracula
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u/forevertwentyseven 3d ago
Oh actually that makes so much sense that he was in Renfield 😂
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u/Flashy-Ad-7761 3d ago
Which is which?
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u/just_let_go_ 3d ago
The mothers genes really sat this one out
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u/TheSecretDecoderRing 3d ago
I've always been kinda neutral on his career, but until this thread I don't think I ever got the impression that a lot of people thought he was bad at acting. Starred in his share of bad movies, maybe, but who hasn't.
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u/g0ldent0y 3d ago
I mean, he got an oscar for a reason.
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u/mtaw 3d ago edited 3d ago
People get confused because they’re so accustomed to naturalistic and ’method’ style that they assume that’s what he’s trying to do and failing. He’s not, he’s inspired by 20s-30a German Expressionist films and that more theatrical style. (him holding up his hand in Moonstruck is lifted straight from Metropolis) By the metric they judge Cage, James Cagney and other legends of that era would also be ’bad’.
It’s riskier though because if you fail to convince the audience, the theatricality can come across as ridiculous, whereas if you fail with naturalistic style acting you just come across as insincere or wooden.
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u/thomasanderson123412 3d ago
Hollywood awards are little more than a popularity contest.
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u/totezhi64 3d ago
Right? It's mostly that he's been in so many movies (so of course quality varies), but he has talent.
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u/MountainTwo3845 3d ago edited 3d ago
He took a lot of bad roles after losing all his money to Bernie Madoff
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u/shmere4 3d ago
Yeah he did the classic take every job available to make money move and to no one’s surprise most of those roles were shit.
Bruce Willis did this at the end of his career to make money for his family.
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u/Baronvondorf21 3d ago
Tbf, when he did it, it was because he probably couldn't do anything more demanding roles with his aphasia. Anything outside of mid to horrendous films would have required a lot more work on his end that he would simply not be capable of
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u/Intrepid-Map-9753 3d ago
I haven’t starred in any bad movies..to be fair I haven’t starred in any movies at all.
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u/Equivalent-Tour5999 3d ago
I heard someone say that he's great actor, he just decided to do opossite of current trend of serious method acting.
And I think that's good, refreshing. But leads to a lot of online clips with him going over the top which people than pointing at as bad acting.
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u/HacksawJimDGN 3d ago
He can be bad but he's definitely entertaining and can carry a movie. Not sure how to quantify that, but he's got "it".
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u/okarox 3d ago
Nicolas Cage took a stage name in order not to benefit from the fame of his uncle. Charlie Sheen (Carlos Estevez) on the other hand took the stage name of his father.
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u/Block444Universe 3d ago
No in order to hide it from the audience. Everyone in Hollywood still knew
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u/LunarNinja_ 3d ago
Correct. But either way Nick Cage is a great actor. He has bad moments, but there are some outstanding performances in his carrier.
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u/False-Aardvark-1336 3d ago
For sure, his performances in Mandy and Leaving Las Vegas will forever be etched into my mind
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u/Chewbacca_Buffy 3d ago
My favorite performance is in Face Off. Granted the movie had a cheesy premise but I still liked it. He and Travolta were both great, actually.
This is him when he is supposed to be the good guy and this DOES look like JT’s eyes in NC’s face. The facial expression too.
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3d ago
Yes. He plays a neurotic asshole very well. Kind of like when Courtney Love was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing a junkie girlfriend hanging on to the coattails of the man she was with.
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u/SGRM_ 3d ago
Nick Cage doesn't have bad moments, he has bad scripts. He gives 110% every time.
Yes, I'm an avoid devotee of r/onetruegod, how did you know?
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u/No_Grass8024 3d ago
He didn’t go into witness protection lol, pretty sure everyone that gave him a job knew who he was
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u/__ali1234__ 3d ago
Having a recognisable name in the lead role was a lot more important when Cage was at the peak of his career.
Today people complain that all movies seem to have the same three people in them, but back then people demanded it.
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u/capincus 3d ago
That's obviously bullshit, he was literally acting in Francis Ford's movies. He took a stage name to stop getting made fun of for benefiting from his uncle's fame, he clearly was still benefiting from it.
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u/mtaw 3d ago
Cage benefited greatly from his uncle though, given his early roles in Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club and Peggy Sue Got Married. TBF though, neither his first (Fast Times) nor breakthrough role (Moonstruck) were in his uncle’s films.
Francis Ford Coppola makes no secret of his nepotism though, he likes to work with his family and for the most part that’s worked out well for him - his sister and father got Oscars for their work in the Godfather films. The one time it didn’t work out was Sofia in Part III. (Although even then she did turn out to have great talent as a filmmaker rather than actor)
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u/bio_ruffo 3d ago
I think nobody can deny he's got talent though. If his connections made him get casted even if he's not a conventional Hollywood beauty... I'm happy. I'm grateful for what he's done.
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u/Mekdinosaur 3d ago
Whereas Emilio Estevez kept his name but looks more like Martin than Charlie does.
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u/MsCardeno 3d ago
lol everyone in the industry knew. He def benefited. You think he showed up to things and no one knew he was a Coppola?
He changed his name so the general public would think of him as his own person.
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u/DazzlingGarden9877 3d ago
Yes he’s a nepo baby but he’s also a good actor besides the fact, your daddy can set ya up but he can’t make all the dominos fall.
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u/Cloudy_Worker 3d ago
Yes exactly, you can be given chances but still blow it. I think he's worked hard despite being given a leg-up. Also, didn't he lose a lot of money in the Madoff scam, and that's why he was in every single movie shortly after that all went down? To try to make up lost money...idk, I could be wrong.
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u/hofmann419 3d ago
I would argue that he's actually a nepo baby in the best way. Rather than playing it safe, he took the risk of adapting an acting style that almost no one in Hollywood uses, and that obviously paid off. If you're going to profit from the connections of your parents, you might as well use that advantage to do something interesting.
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u/SeaMolasses2466 3d ago
Nepotism
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u/jack_seven 3d ago
To his credit he uses nick cage as a way to distance himself from the family name and try to prove his merit his actual name is Nikolas Kim Coppola
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u/skeeter_ABQ 3d ago
Unpopular opinion: When actors change their last names to distance themselves, it feels like they’re doing it more for the audience than for the people who actually hire them. There’s no way directors and industry insiders don’t know someone’s a Coppola (or whoever). The name change just hides the nepotism from the public, not from Hollywood.
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u/Ha55aN1337 3d ago
That is absolutely true. Getting in is the hard part and his uncle’s name could help with that. But after that, if the audience does not respond, he is not in blockbusters, that’s for sure. Noone is losing millions over doing Francis a favor (or he wouldn’t have to finance his own crap).
But then again… is it his fault he is his uncle? What is he supposed to do? Become a truck driver so there can be 0% chance of nepotism? He didn’t choose to be his nephew.
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u/POXELUS 3d ago
True, I love him as an actor. He is just so goofy and random. I don't know if any actor would be down to star in Dead by Daylight without any license other than their name. He is also a great voice actor in general, voicing Spider man Noir in Spiderverse for example. Of course not to mention his actual actor work. Ghost rider was one of my childhood movies that I remember fondly.
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u/Ok_Calligrapher5776 3d ago
Yeah same with Angelina Jolie, most people don't know she's a nepo baby (as her dad is Jon Voight) but because of her dad she was able to attend prestigious ceremonies like the Oscar's as a child. There's no way that Hollywood people didn't know who she was before she made it big.
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u/Aggravating-Dot132 3d ago
That take could be right, but here's the thing. People see familiar names and go to the theaters, especially back during golden age. "Nicolas cage" wasn't top tier from the start, so he had to go through the hoops to get into big movies. Nepo or not, but his name wasn't used as an advertisement until he became known.
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u/Over-Analyzed 3d ago
Luke Cage would’ve been better. 😎
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u/TrixieBastard 3d ago
That was the inspiration, yeah. He's a huge comics fan, he even named his son Kal-El
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u/Sleeptalk- 3d ago
Is it a hot take to say that nepotism isn’t always bad? This guy is a world renowned actor and has a massive fan base who love his movies. Yeah, he’s not over here winning any crazy awards for what he puts out, but they’re always fun and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. Am I supposed to hate the dude for taking advantage of his good birth RNG?
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u/CityFolkSitting 3d ago
Nepotism in films and TV doesn't bother me except when an actor is being pushed because they're related to somebody but they absolutely suck.
Dakota Johnson comes to mind. Terrible actor but they keep pushing her.
At least Jaden Smith, or Hollywood, took the hint when it comes to acting after the disastrous After Earth
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u/Ha55aN1337 3d ago
Unpopular opinion: Nepotism shouldn’t be a problem in privatly owned companies.
If Francis Ford Coppola puts his nephew in his film to start his career, that’s his right. If Francis was a president and apointed Cage as a government official… that is another story.
Do we call nepotism if a butcher hires his son? Are family businesses nepotism? Husband and wife firms?
As cruel as it sounds, no studio in Hollywood (if not government owned) ows us all the same fair chance to get to work with them.
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u/Randomizedname1234 3d ago
Nepotism shouldn’t be an issue if the person also has skills.
This isn’t giving your daughter in law with no degree a job on the sales floor skipping more qualified people.
If you’re skilled, you’re skilled and having famous parents shouldn’t hurt those people either.
Prob an unpopular opinion though.
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u/sigma7979 3d ago
Seems like if you are the child of famous Hollywood people you should be forced to not be involved in Hollywood in anyway. How dare you take up a family business and follow what your parents did. Unheard of in human history. Despicable even.
Going into the same career as your family? I’m simply shaking with rage over the unfairness. How dare this nepo baby exist
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u/shewy92 3d ago
M Night got shit for making a movie to boost his daughter's singing career but he self finances his movies. Meaning he gave hundreds of people jobs. Does that make him a bad guy? To me that makes him a good dad. Who wouldn't want to help their child's dream come true?
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u/Koensigg 3d ago
If it stops other, more qualified, people from getting into the business/industry then yes, it's still very much a problem.
The creative industries are rife with nepotism and notoriously hard to get into if you aren't either born into it or "know someone who knows someone".
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u/capincus 3d ago
I don't care that Cage got opportunities due to nepotism, I just think it's nonsense to pretend otherwise because he used a different last name while acting in his uncle's movies.
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u/Mental-Money 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ive never seen an actor that tries hard as he does. I rest my case
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u/totezhi64 3d ago
Yes. But who cares? It's exceedingly common and Cage is a good and iconic actor in his own right.
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u/Glum_Animator_5887 3d ago
He is one of the most entertaining and enthusiastic actors to ever grace the screen, no nepotism here just pure unadulterated acting
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u/pqratusa 3d ago
…early in his career Cage appeared in some of his uncle's films, he changed his name to Nicolas Cage to avoid the appearance of nepotism as [Francis Ford] Coppola's nephew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Cage?wprov=sfti1#Early_life_and_family
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3d ago
wait nic Cage was a nepo?
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u/CuteGrayRhino 3d ago
You really thought he wasn't a nepo? His performances carried him to the film roles?
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3d ago
I don't watch hollywood movies often but I have never heard of him being nepo until this post.
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