For greater than 40 years, Nicolas Cage has passed by the stage identify of, effectively, Nicolas Cage.
However after many years, the performing icon, born Nicolas Kim Coppola, revealed he legally modified his final identify to Cage simply final 12 months.
“I am Nic Cage in life, and I am Nic Cage on digicam,” he advised Selection.
Nicolas Cage is formally Nicolas Cage. Getty
Cage was born into Hollywood’s well-known Coppola household. His uncle is five-time Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola and his daughter, Sofia Coppola, additionally an Oscar-winner, is Cage’s cousin.
“‘Tis higher to be the patriarch of my very own little household than the clown cousin on the margins of another person’s, so I made a decision I will deliver it on and be ‘Cage’,” he mentioned.
Cage used his beginning identify solely twice in his performing profession, in 1981 tv pilot The Better of Instances and 1982 movie Quick Instances at Ridgemont Excessive.
He then modified his final identify to keep away from claims of nepotism, taking his stage identify from Marvel comedian ebook superhero Luke Cage and American composer John Cage.
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Cage celebrates his cousin Sofia Coppola’s Greatest Screenplay Golden Globe for Misplaced in Translation along with her and his uncle Francis Ford Coppola Getty
“‘Cage’ is a reputation that I favored coming throughout within the comics – I simply thought he had a cool identify – and I grew up in a really avant-garde, artsy household and there was speak about John Cage and the experimental compositions that he did,” Cage mentioned.
“I used to be in search of one thing like ‘James Dean’, I used to be in search of one thing brief and candy.
“I assumed, I will maintain the identify ‘Nicolas’ as a result of my father named me Nicolas – with French spelling, which has at all times pissed off me, as a result of everybody provides an ‘h’. I do not know why he gave me the French spelling! However he did.”
Cage additionally mentioned he didn’t thoughts if folks known as him Nicolas or shortened it to Nic.
“I am each! I feel folks know me as each,” he mentioned.
The actor had beforehand mentioned his choice to alter his final identify got here after being teased on the set of Quick Instances at Ridgemont Excessive in 1982.
“I used to be nonetheless Nicholas Coppola and folks wouldn’t cease saying issues like, ‘I really like the odor of Nicholas within the morning’ due to [Francis Ford Coppola film] Apocalypse Now and Robert Duvall saying ‘I really like the odor of napalm within the morning.’
“It made it laborious to work, and I made a decision I do not want this so I modified it to Cage.”
