Nicolas Cage stars in David Gordon Green’s new movie, Joe, where he plays, well, Joe, an ex-con who winds up mentoring Gary, a troubled 15-year-old boy. You know, “a waterfather.” Oh, are you not familiar with the term? Cage explains to Moviefone:

One of the things I like about the movie — my father used to say, “If you’re in the desert and you’re dying of thirst, are you going to drink a glass of blood or you going to drink a glass a water?” meaning, sometimes your very own family that you’re close to can be toxic. They take your success or your potential as a personal insult on their failure, and they beat you up or they say you’ll never make it. That’s not a glass of blood you want to drink if you’re dying of thirst in the desert. But Joe provides, like, a glass of water. He’s what I call in the abstract a “waterfather.” He becomes a surrogate father and he sees the potential in Gary.