This actor, who comes from one of Hollywood’s most famous families, is a national treasure, but his personal life is a “quiet, horrible nightmare.”
The Family Man actor, who once purchased a plane ticket for his child’s imaginary friend, is now living in a “hostile environment” fostered by his son’s ex-wife, who is blocking him from meeting his twin granddaughters, who are four years old.
Continue reading to discover the identity of the star whose name change was inspired by a superhero!
When this actor was only 15, he sat in a car with his uncle, one of Hollywood’s most prominent filmmakers, and begged him for a role in one of his award-winning films.
“Give me a screen test, I’ll show you acting. There was just silence in the car,” said the star, who’s proudly bizarre both on and off screen.
As a 17-year-old, the actor forged his own route to stardom, landing a minor role in the 1982 cult classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
“I was the brunt of jokes because my name was still Coppola,” says Nicholas Cage, who was born in 1962 as Nicholas Kim Coppola.
“People would not stop saying things like, ‘I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning,’ because of Apocalypse Now…and it made it hard to work and I said, ‘I don’t need this,’ and changed it to Cage,” the star explains of dropping the surname that connected him to his famous relative, Francis Ford Coppola.
Next, explaining why he chose Cage, he says, “It’s a combination of Luke Cage from Marvel comics, who was a character I liked, also named Power Man, and John Cage, the avant-garde composer. Speaks volumes about everything I’ve been up to ever since.”
His first starring role with Cage as his surname was in 1983’s Valley Girl, and he described how the obscurity made him feel like he “had this weight come off my body.”
“Wow, I really can do this. And I felt liberated by that experience,” he tells Hollywood Reporter. “And you can see it in Valley Girl that I’m free. Whereas in Fast Times, or even Rumble Fish, I’m somewhat stuck,” he explains, alluding to his role in his uncle’s 1983 picture.
Over the next few years, Cage appeared in back-to-back films, cementing his status as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actors.
In 1988, he received Golden Globe nominations for Moonstruck with Cher and Honeymoon in Vegas with Sarah Jessica Parker.
It was also the year he met actor Christina Fulton, who gave birth to his first son, Weston Coppola Cage, who played a younger version of his father in the 2014 film Rage.
Cage, who won an Oscar for his part in Leaving Las Vegas in 1995, has a son, Kal-El (Superman’s birth name), born in 2005 with his third wife Alice Kim, and a daughter, August Francesca (born 2022), with his fifth wife Riko Shibata.
Cage was also notably married to Patricia Arquette (1995–2001) and Lisa Marie Presley (2002), from whom he filed for divorce just months afterward.
In an interview with People, the actor from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent stated that family is “first and foremost.”
Nicolas Cage hits the carpet at #GQMOTY 2021 pic.twitter.com/QukOMppjz9
— GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) November 19, 2021
“There’s no version of Nick Cage in reality that doesn’t want to spend time with his children…There’s no version of Nick Cage that didn’t put family first over career,” says the star of Raising Arizona.
He adds, “I turned down Lord of the Rings and I turned down Matrix because I didn’t want to go to New Zealand for three years or Australia for three years because I needed to be home with my son Weston, that’s a fact.”
Offering evidence to that, actor Minnie Driver once said: “Was once on a plane with [Nicholas Cage] and his son and a seat had also been purchased for his son’s imaginary friend.”
Weston Coppola Cage
Today, the Adaptation star has a close relationship with his children and two grandsons, Lucian (born 2014) and Sorin (2016), whom he shares with his second wife.
“He can do things I dream about doing…compose music, sing, act, sculpt and cook and now he is a loving father,” Cage said of Weston, the former lead of two heavy metal bands. “To see my son with my grandson is as close to a sense of blissful completion I ever had.”
The 33-year-old D-Day star is married three times and has twin girls, Cyress and Venice, born in 2020 with his third ex-wife, Hila Arounian.
However, the children are unfamiliar with any of their renowned Hollywood family members.
After a contentious divorce in 2021, Hila was granted sole custody of their twin girls, with no visitation rights for Weston, according to TMZ.
Weston’s mother, Christina, told the US Sun that Hila has created a “hostile environment,” including “a request for a restraining order against her seeing the kids that was dismissed” in 2023.
“As a classy, respectful Hollywood family we are appalled and shocked at how Hila could do something like this. It is devastating not to see these kids. Nicolas and I haven’t been able to meet our two beautiful little granddaughters at all since they were born,” Christina says of the “smear campaign” Hila launched against her family. “We’re in a quiet, horrible nightmare. It’s insane, painful, hurtful, devastating. I have a beautiful relationship with my two little boy grandchildren and my son has a beautiful relationship with his boys.”
Christina adds, “Not meeting the girls is painful, hurtful, and sh0cking.”
Hila defends herself by posting a statement on Facebook, stating that her ex cheated multiple times and was “weaponizing influence, wealth,” using “the legal system against” her.
She also refers to Christina as a “sabotaging mother,” and, in reference to Weston’s mental illness and addictions, she describes Cage as a “enabling father” who has “consistently hampered his progress.”
Hila makes no mention of limiting family time with the twins, simply that Weston’s “behavior became a physical threat to our daughters and me, as well as our emotional well-being.”
Christina reveals that the Cage/Coppola family will not back down: “In these trying times, our family’s resilience is tested. But we remain committed to overcoming these challenges and restoring our family’s harmony.”