Nicolas Cage On His Lost ‘Batman’ Project With Tim Burton, Why He Originally Tried To Hide His Connection To Francis Ford Coppola & His Plans To Focus On TV — Red Sea
deadline.comNicolas Cage doesn’t really care if you know he’s related to Francis Ford Coppola. The actor, best known for his lively performances in flicks such as Con Air and Face/Off, famously changed his name from Nicolas Coppola to Nicolas Cage at the start of his career.
He told a boisterous audience this afternoon at the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that he made the switch for two reasons.
The first appeared to be what Cage described as some early career on-set bullying. “I did a little movie called Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” Cage said. “When I was on set, some of the other actors couldn’t believe I had talent because I was Coppola’s nephew.
They would quote lines from Apocalypse Now and change lines to ‘I love the smell of Nicholas in the mornings instead of napalm in the morning.’” Cage continued to say that the second and most pressing reason behind his name change was the temperament of the directors he was working with. “Directors are a pretty egocentric bunch, and they’re a very competitive group,” he said. “I didn’t think any filmmaker in their own right would want the name Coppola above the title of their movie.
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