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By Angela Dawson
Entertainment News Wire
NEW YORK -- Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage is looking refreshed, relaxed and invigorated after taking a year off from the rigors of moviemaking.
Following his critically acclaimed dual performance in "Adaptation," he spent some of his down time on his boat, sailing around Catalina Island off the Southern California coast.
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Oh yes, and he married then separated from Lisa Marie Presley. But Cage, a private person, would rather not discuss that.
"I'm ready to get back to work," he says, sitting in a hotel's vacant banquet room overlooking Park Avenue with a happy expression on his famous hangdog face.
In a few weeks he'll begin work on the action-adventure "National Treasure" in which he'll play an archeologist hunting for relics hidden during the American Revolution. It's his fourth collaboration with famed action producer Jerry Bruckheimer. (Cage, 39, starred in the Bruckheimer blockbusters "The Rock," "Con Air" and "Gone in 60 Seconds.")
After that, he is signed to star in Gore Verbinski's family drama "The Weather Man," followed by Cage's first comic book hero role in "Ghost Rider." A comic book collector, Cage has been waiting a long time to play a comic book hero. Indeed, he once was slated to star in Tim Burton's ill-fated "Superman" project. (Born Nicholas Coppola, he took his screen name from the comic book character Luke Cage.)
On this late summer day, he's busy promoting "Matchstick Men," a comedy in which he plays Roy, a con artist afflicted with obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia and a few other conditions. Roy pulls off his small-time cons on vulnerable and greedy victims with the aid of his cohort, Frank (played by Sam Rockwell).
Roy functions best when he's working a con. At other times, he can barely keep his wits about him. When his idiosyncrasies begin to threaten his criminal livelihood, he's encouraged by Frank to see a psychoanalyst. There, he reveals that he was once married but left his wife, who may have been pregnant, 15 years earlier. Soon after, a 14-year-old girl arrives at Roy's doorstep claiming to be his daughter.
Bright and vivacious, Angela (Alison Lohman) wants to get to know her estranged dad and takes a particular interest in his work. Gradually, and somewhat reluctantly, Roy begins to show her the tricks of the trade -- to Frank's consternation. Together, they embark on scheme to bilk a shady millionaire, a con that could yield their biggest cache ever -- if they can pull it off.
Cage says he was intrigued by the complexity of the story, scripted by sibling writers Nicholas and Ted Griffin and adapted from the book of the same name by novelist Eric Garcia. The title "Matchstick Men" refers to a term sometimes used for con men or grifters. "The script was full of surprises," say Cage, looking a lot like Elvis, dressed all in black with his thick brown hair slicked back.
"I saw potential in the character -- to play a person with a very hard condition to live with and to do it in a way that wouldn't break people out, but maybe they could identify with him or care about him or get close to him to the point where they didn't see his tics," he says. (Cage knows something about obsessive-compulsive behavior: he has a friend with the disorder.)
Director Ridley Scott ("Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down") says it was important to cast someone who could play Roy with humor without making fun of the character's condition. Cage, he says, was just the actor to do it. "He was the first call," says the British director.
Cage and Scott had nearly worked together years ago on another movie project, recalls Cage, but it didn't work out. "We talked about his movie 'Legend,' which I liked," says Cage. "I remember having a good conversation with him, but it wasn't until now that we finally did work together. It's odd to me because I've always admired his movies as a fan. I wanted to have that experience sooner. But I'm happy it's happening now."
Cage says he joined the cast when he heard Scott had signed on to direct. Since making his directorial debut last year with the low-budget romantic drama "Sonny," Cage was particularly interested in watching "a master at work," he says. "That's something I'd like to get to if I ever get to direct again."
But it wasn't just Scott's technical proficiency that made Cage feel comfortable working with the director. "He's an actor's director," Cage says. "He's confident and quick and doesn't fix things that aren't broke. He lets actors breathe and come in and feel confident enough to invent things." Not that he felt the need to improvise. "It was all there on the page," says Cage.
Still, when you hire an actor of Cage's caliber, you get more than someone who can read the lines. Famously obsessive about the care he takes in each performance, he contributed the nervous facial and body tics that his character exhibits throughout the film. "Throughout the rehearsal process I would sort of jot down on my script how many blinks I would do at this stress level or how many at that stress level -- it was like choreography," he recalls.
Acknowledging Jack Nicholson's portrayal of a similarly afflicted character in "As Good As It Gets," Cage notes that the venerable actor "gave some very entertaining moments without mocking people who actually have these kinds of problems." He says he tried to achieve the same thing for "Matchstick Men."
Of course, for the film to work, there has to be a good dynamic between the three main characters and it was all there, according to Cage. The actor found working with 23-year-old Lohman a treat. "She's delightful," he says with a smile.
He also enjoyed working with Rockwell, who was critically praised for his dead-on portrayal of '70s game-show host Chuck Barris in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." Recalls Cage, "Sam was a lot of fun to be around on the set -- absurd and mischievous -- and I relate to all that stuff. So we really hit it off."
If there is one thing audiences might commonly associate with Cage, it's his penchant for quirky roles. He gravitates towards characters who undergo personal crises or difficult situations because, he says, "perfection is boring to me."
"I like the imperfections," he insists. "I like the character traits and the issues, because it's more honest. I'd rather just pull the mask off and get to the truth. And the truth is sometimes flawed."
