Nicolas Cage Interview (page 2 of 3)

Coping with 9/11

RD: Does the extended Coppola family have regular reunions these days?
Cage: I would like to think of us all at the big table having spaghetti, laughing and listening to the opera, but everyone's off doing their own thing. It's a sad reality -- sort of an American epidemic of family. Now, my wife comes from a Korean family that is so tight-knit. There's an understanding that you will have dinner together, at least once a week. I think it would be helpful if more American families spent more time together.

RD: Tell me about your marriage to Alice.
Cage: It's amazing marrying someone who wants absolutely nothing to do with Hollywood. She doesn't want to act, to make movies -- she's interested in clothes and making her own jewelry, and she's very family-oriented.

RD: How is it having this little baby?
Cage: I'm much more relaxed this time. The first time, you haven't got a clue what you're doing.

RD: Has being a father changed you?
Cage: It's the most significant transformation in my life. When I had Weston at 26, I became less self- involved and more interested in others. Everything we do impacts someone else's life.

RD: Let's talk about World Trade Center. Tell us what happened to John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno.
Cage: They went to help get people out. Then both towers came down. They were stuck at the bottom of all that debris.

RD: You re-create that in the film?
Cage: Oliver [Stone] cast real firefighters and cops who were there that day, rescuers who saved John's life after he'd been stuck for 24 hours. They were re-enacting the experience in a part of the film where I'm teetering between life and death. I was closing my eyes and listening to these men as they were touching me, and I felt like they were angels. It was so important to them to save this man. Yes, there was huge evil and tragedy that day, but there was tremendous love and goodness -- and I felt it like an electric current.

RD: Was it a difficult role for you?
Cage: I felt like I was being called to represent John, and wanted to make sure I got it right. I felt that's how I could give back in some way what they had given to all of us.

RD: You spent time with John preparing for the role. Did he share with you what he went through psychologically?
Cage: The main thing that affected him was the feeling that in some way he'd let his wife and kids down by going into the building. We went to Ground Zero together, and that was very hard. At the memorial, there were letters from kids: "Daddy, I wish you were here. We could play ball." If there's any way that the departed could say to the kids, "I love you," it would happen in the movie.

RD: Why did you choose this role?
Cage: I was at a point in my career where I wanted to apply my abilities to something meaningful and not just entertainment. It's important to let people get their minds off their problems, but I'll never get the images of the planes going into those buildings out of my head. Actors have an opportunity to use storytelling as a way to solve pain.

RD: What about the criticism that this movie comes too soon after the real event, that people aren't ready?
Cage: I don't think it's too soon, because we're living in the age of technology, where everything is faster. And the most impressionable people who saw this were children. How do they cope with what happened?

RD: So you would encourage kids to see this?
Cage: I think I would for kids over 12, with adult supervision, if they were asking a lot of questions about it.

RD: You've said you're happiest when you're working. Are you a workaholic?
Cage: I'm into creating. I'm not anywhere in the league of H. G. Wells, but when people say I work too much, I say, well H. G. Wells wrote a lot of books. Were people going to tell him to stop?

RD: Some people get to a point where they want to spend more time with family and work less.
Cage: I think that's very important. I'm blessed that I've married someone who's been supportive of my work and traveled with me, but there will come a time when I'm not going to be able to move around like I am now. That's part of the reason I'm doing more now.

• Actors
• • Sept. 11

• Nicolas Cage Bio on biography.com
• 
• Meet the Heroes of September 11
• "Our lives have changed forever."
• 
• Rudy Giuliani: The Leader
• New York City's mayor Rudy Giuliani: "Courage is about managing fear."
• 
• Rudy Giuliani: Guts, Grace and Glory
• In the grim days after September 11, New York's mayor, Rudy Giuliani, kept hearing his father's words: "Courage is doing what you have to do even though you are afraid."
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• Rudy Giuliani Gives Away a Special Bride
• Five days after 9/11, Mayor Rudy Giuliani escorts the sister of a fallen firefighter down the aisle.
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• Who Financed 9/11?
• One family's quest to trace the money behind the murders.
• 
• Lauren Manning World Trade Center Survivor
• Badly burned in the World Trade Center, Lauren Manning had the will to live.
• 
• Lauren Manning 5 Years After September 11
• "I'm moving forward."
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