Continuing his strategy of choosing unexpected movie roles, Nicolas Cage plays a clearly unstable cop who embarks on a crazy heist with a colleague in the offbeat independent black comedy thriller The Trust.
He says he chose the film because of the energy and passion of the filmmakers, brothers Alex and Ben Brewer. "I wanted to try working with younger filmmakers who were cutting their teeth and trying to establish themselves," he explains. "I thought maybe there would be a new voice that they could find in me."
And he loved the way the script created a character who was full of surprises. "I thought that I could make him the nicest guy in the world," he says, "and all of a sudden, he turns into a monster. It's those kinds of characters, who are both funny and scary at the same time, that I find compelling."
He was also excited to work with his costar Elijah Wood, because he knew they could riff off each other. "With me, I always want to get it to that place that I know can be frustrating sometimes with other actors who are very by-the-book, which is a good thing to be, by the way," Cage says. "You want to get the scenes down where the script is serviced. But once you have that, you know, let's find the jazz! We would go off-book. I think that's where a lot of the humour in the movie came from."
But the highlight for him was the chance to share a few scenes with his hero Jerry Lewis. "He's someone I grew up with," Cage says. "He was a motivating force for me. Jerry Lewis and Marlon Brando were my two big influences."
Cage actually approached Lewis about playing his father in The Trust. He recounts the story: "I said, 'Jerry, I don't normally want to put people on the spot, but one of my dreams is to be in a movie with you. I'd love to construct a part where you and I can be on camera together.' And he said, 'Absolutely.' Which was like, 'Wow!' So, he did us the favour. He played the part of my father in the movie. For me, shooting those scenes was one of the greatest days of my life and certainly the greatest day of my career."
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