Nicolas Cage, original name Nicholas Kim Coppola, (born January 7, 1964, Long Beach, California, U.S.), American actor, perhaps best known for his performances in action films and big-budget summer blockbusters. He received an Academy Award for his work in Leaving Las Vegas (1995).

Britannica Quiz Film Buff Which film won the first best picture prize at the Academy Awards, in 1929?

The nephew of motion-picture director Francis Ford Coppola, he made his acting debut in 1981 in a television pilot. He then landed a role in the teenage comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and in 1983 appeared in Coppola’s Rumble Fish. Wanting to differentiate himself from his uncle, he subsequently began using the last name Cage. His first starring role came in Valley Girl (1983), a lighthearted romance about suburban punk rockers. In 1984 Cage, by then a strong proponent of the Stanislavsky method of acting, appeared in Coppola’s The Cotton Club as well as in Racing with the Moon and Birdy. Throughout the late 1980s he starred in numerous comedies, including Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and the Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona (1987), in which he played a small-time criminal who, along with his wife, a former police officer, kidnaps one of a set of quintuplets.

After several lacklustre films in the early 1990s, Cage earned critical acclaim with his Oscar-winning performance as a self-destructive alcoholic writer in Leaving Las Vegas. He went on to star in a series of large-budget explosive-laden films that were hits at the box office. In The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), and Face/Off (1997), he appeared opposite such actors as Sean Connery, John Cusack, and John Travolta, respectively. Other notable action films and thrillers include Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), about a group of car thieves attempting a single-night heist of 50 cars; Windtalkers (2002), a portrayal of Navajo code talkers during World War II; and National Treasure (2004) and its sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), which featured Cage as a treasure hunter searching for historical artifacts.

In 2002 Cage appeared in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation, playing twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman, and was again nominated for an Academy Award. That same year he made his directorial debut with Sonny, a film he also produced. After portraying a firefighter in World Trade Center (2006), Oliver Stone’s film about the September 11 attacks, Cage took on roles as an astrophysicist in the science-fiction thriller Knowing (2009) and a police detective struggling with drug and gambling addictions in Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009).

Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today

Cage was a prolific actor, occasionally making more than five movies in a single year. A number of his films went straight to video. His notable film work included Kick-Ass (2010), an action comedy about an ordinary teenager who dreams of becoming a superhero, and the action thriller Ghost Rider (2007) and its sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), in which he appeared as a demonically possessed motorcyclist. His atypically subdued work in Joe (2013), in which he played a former criminal who takes a protective interest in one of his young employees, was widely acclaimed. Cage then assumed the role of an airline pilot in Left Behind (2014), an adaptation of Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’s highly successful novel (1995) about the Rapture, and in Oliver Stone’s Snowden (2016) he was cast as a former intelligence officer. Cage also lent his voice to such animated films as The Croods (2013) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).

In 2009 Cage was named Global Citizen of the Year by the United Nations for his humanitarian efforts, notably his involvement in creating a fund for former child soldiers.