Nicolas Cage has made a name for himself with some of the most prominent movies like Valley Girl, Ghost Rider, Gone in 60 Seconds, and National Treasure. Besides his wide range of filmography, the actor’s family background is also very interesting. He is the nephew from his father’s side to the legendary filmmaker and the director of The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola. Interestingly, it is the same reason that forced the actor to make one of the most crucial career decisions.
It was in the 1983 feature Valley Girl when the world was first introduced to Nicolas Cage who was known as Nicolas Coppola till then. According to the actor, his famous surname constantly led to allegations of nepotism which convinced him to take a risky decision of changing his name soon after his feature film debut.
Nicolas Cage didn’t want to be associated with nepotism
Nepotism is a persistent issue in Hollywood which we have often seen affecting the careers of many actors both positively and negatively. Although Nicolas Cage‘s career has repeatedly shown us that he never benefitted to a large extent due to his birth name, the Raizing Arizona star wanted to prove his worth without the help of any connection.
In an interview with The Total Film, when the 59-year-old actor was asked if he ever regretted changing his name, Cage replied that he felt nobody took him seriously with the Coppola surname. He needed to prove his self-worth to everyone and didn’t want the name of his uncle popping up every time he went to a casting office or talked about acting.
“No, I needed to recreate myself, reinvent myself. Nicolas Coppola had a hard time believing he could do it. Every time I would go into a casting office or talk about acting with a casting agent, I was talking about my uncle’s illustrious body of work and it was getting in the way of the movies. It was making me feel like I was a victim of nepotism and no one would really take me seriously.”
According to the Leaving Las Vegas lead, the Marvel superhero Luke Cage and composer John Cage highly influenced his life which led him to take up their surname. But it is also to be remembered that despite hailing from the Coppola family, he didn’t get a role in both The Outsiders and The Godfather Part III.
While the nepotism allegations were the major issue here, another experience also forced the Reinfeld actor to go down that path. It was his experience while filming his debut feature Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
What happened to Nicolas Cage in his debut feature?
Nicolas Cage shared in an interview with Wired that when he was filming for his debut film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, he had to constantly hear references from other Coppola movies on the set which made it difficult for him to work.
“I changed my name because I was doing a little movie called Fast Times at Ridgemont High and I was still Nicolas Coppola, and people would not stop saying things like, ‘I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning,’ because of Apocalypse Now, and Robert Duvall saying, ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning,’ and it made it hard to work and I said, ‘I don’t need this,’ and changed it to Cage.”
It can be said that even though the path was rough, the actor has been quite successful in rising with his own merits and didn’t face the same thing as his cousin Sofia Coppola. The daughter of Francis Ford Coppola and an Oscar-winning director, Coppola had been a part of several acclaimed projects, but she also spoke publicly about the repeated allegations of nepotism in her career.
Lately, Sofia Coppola’s projects have received wide acclaim but there was a time when her earlier works were often associated with her familial connections. She was repeatedly alleged to have used her family connections in making the earlier projects. Since then, many film lovers have also spoken for her and admitted that it is her merit that helped her career and not any influence.
Source: The Total Film
