Nicolas Cage faces off with a new foe: Himself

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — “Metropolis.” Bruce Lee. Woody Woodpecker. A pet cobra. All of these things have been inspirations behind Nicolas Cage performances, sometimes private homages that the actor has used like blueprints to build some of his most exaggerated, erratic and affecting characters. A conversation with Cage, likewise, pulls from a wide gamut of sources. In a recent and typically wide-ranging interview ahead of the release of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Cage touched on Picasso, Elia Kazan, Timothée Chalamet and Francis Bacon. For even the mercurial Cage, the film represents something different. In it, Cage plays himself. Or, rather, he plays a kind of fun-house mirror version of himself. It opens in theaters Friday.