The wobbly distinction between reality and artifice fascinates Nicolas Cage. The first time we encountered each other was in 2001, during the making of “Adaptation”—a film based on Charlie Kaufman’s struggle to adapt my book “ The Orchid Thief ” for the screen—in which Cage played Kaufman and his twin, Donald. He was in the middle of a scene, and I tiptoed onto the set as quietly as possible, convinced that any distraction would trigger one of the eruptions for which Cage had become famous.
Between takes, he glanced at the handful of people watching, and exclaimed cheerily, “Oh, guys, look!” He pointed at me and a small, fuzzy-haired man I hadn’t noticed beside me. “It’s the real Charlie and the real Susan!” He seemed tickled by this collision between the characters in the movie and their real-life counterparts, and insisted that the crew take note. (Kaufman and I, who had never met before that moment, slunk away sheepishly.
) Where was the rager, the explosive madman who years later would inspire a viral supercut on YouTube of the climactic outbursts that marked such films as “ Moonstruck ” and “Face/Off” and “Vampire’s Kiss”? From what I can tell, Cage leaves it all on the set. In person, he’s courtly, gentle, careful with his words, reflective, and quick to be silly. The yawning divide between his performances and his personality is deliberate: having appeared in more than a hundred films since he began acting as a teen-ager, he cou.