Longlegs ' Osgood Perkins has opened up on what it was like directing Nicolas Cage in the new horror movie, and how the actor was comparable to a racehorse, a festive present, and a saxophone on set...
"He's everything that you want him to be, I'm so happy to report. It's like you've come down on Christmas morning and there's a Nicolas Cage-shaped package under your Christmas tree," the filmmaker, whose past works include Gretel & Hansel and The Blackcoat's Daughter, tells GamesRadar+ and Inside Total Film . "You open it up and he just starts going ? He's intensely prepared.
He has read everything. He's seen every movie that you could ever want to reference. He knows everybody's name," Perkins continues.
"He knows every performance, he can quote every song. He likes all the same things you do. He's in complete control of his instrument.
He's just on it. It was a privilege. What can I say?" As the trailers that have kept him at arm's length suggest, Cage's letter-leaving serial killer Longlegs doesn't actually feature all that much in the movie, so when he does, his uncanny, prosthetic-heavy presence packs a punch.
Cage's performance on-screen swings from quietly creepy – a silent, out-of-focus wander in the background, or a whispered voiceover – to heart-joltingly wacky, like in an uncomfortable, half-headed close-up where he loudly, suddenly, inexplicably bursts into song. "It's like having a racehorse in your movie, Perkins adds. "It's like, 'Well, I guess it's just gon.
