If it seems as though Nicolas Cage has been discussing Ghost Rider for years, it’s because he has. Ghost Rider was pushed back a couple of times because, according to the filmmakers, they wanted to get the special effects as close to perfect as possible before unleashing it on audiences. Now as it enters theaters, Cage is ready for whatever the response will be from movie fans and fans of the Ghost Rider comic books. And if the response is positive, there may even be a Ghost Rider 2 in his future.
Ghost Rider features Cage as motorcycle stunt rider Johnny Blaze, a decent guy who’s forced to make a deal with the devil in order to save the two people he cares about the most – his childhood sweetheart Roxanne (Eva Mendes) and his father. And now the time has come for Johnny to make good on his deal. Johnny must transform into the Ghost Rider at night and hunt down rogue demons.
At a press conference in support of the film, Nicolas Cage teamed up with his onscreen love interest Eva Mendes to talk about the release – finally - of Ghost Rider. Cage’s first answer to a reporter's question about Entertainment Weekly was revisited a few times throughout the press conference.
What did Entertainment Weekly do to you?
Nicolas Cage: “Entertainment Weekly hasn’t done anything to me. Somebody asked me a question about, ‘Do you think comic book movies get a bad rap?’ And someone mentioned to me that there was a blurb in Entertainment Weekly – very condescendingly: ‘We get a kick out of watching Academy Award winners being in movies they have no business being seen in.’ And I thought, ‘Well, that’s really shallow thinking, because they can’t get outside their own box.’ They don’t understand the concept of what I would say is art. You have different styles and you can choose to be photo realistic like World Trade Center or you can be pop art illustrative. Why limit yourself to one style of acting?
Especially when you look at Ghost Rider, you see a comic book story structure that digs a little deeper. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, of course. It’s funny, but it’s coming from classic themes like Faust with Gerta or Thomas Mann, or then Beauty and the Beast. It’s fascinating to take those story structures and reintroduce people to it in a pop art, contemporary manner in a comic book especially, no less, which is fun and reaches a lot of people.
Entertainment Weekly is the kind of magazine that is very condescending. They think in a very narrow box and they always have. So, that’s why I would recommend that if you really want to really get your information and know what movies to go see, I wouldn’t resort to that particular publication, because they are pretty shallow.”
The intimate moment when you touch his head on fire – how hard was that?
Eva Mendes: “Well, I’m a 5-year-old at heart. I still think that there is a monster under my bed and I’m not joking. It’s pathetic; it’s really not cute. So, my imagination, I can go there in a second. Actually, I have the reverse problem. It’s hard for me to control my imagination from not going there.”
Nicolas Cage: “Yeah, it’s all about imagination. And that’s what the comic books did for me as a boy. I read Ghost Rider and I read The Hulk. I liked the monsters. I liked them because I couldn’t understand how something so scary could also be so good. It got me thinking as a very early age. And I had a lot of rehearsal. I was Ghost Rider in my backyard at 8-years-old. Nothing has changed.”
Eva Mendes: “Funny, I was Pippi Longstocking in my backyard.”
Nicolas Cage: “You’re a nicer girl.”
Eva Mendes: “Yeah, I was.”
What was your barometer in how far you could go or push things?
Nicolas Cage: “Well, that was what I was really excited about. I like the old grand werewolf movies. I always wanted to find a way to apply my acting in a big mad monster movie where I was transforming into this scary entity. I worked with Kevin about where I thought I might go in terms of the physical expressions, and he would take snapshots of them. I thought there’d be pain because the skin was melting off my face, but then maybe ecstasy as the power of the Ghost Rider was surging through me and he was starting to get off on that a little bit. And then also sadness about what is happening. Then he would download all these different facial expressions into the computer. And I would work with Mark on the day with the DP as to where the camera was going to go and match my moves with the camera. Then it became like a dance and then wherever I had to go in that private place to come up with imaginary belief that I was transforming into this monster. I wanted it to be like an aria. I wanted even the screams to be like music, like an operatic aria.”
Eva, your wardrobe in this film is very cleavage friendly. Was that your idea?
Eva Mendes: “It’s obviously not my personal style, because I am as bundled up as you can get today. But, yes, that was a choice that the director and I made, as far as like my character in the comic book, Roxanne, is very voluptuous, blonde hair, blue eyes, Caucasian. I’m not Caucasian, I’m a terrible blonde, and I don’t have blue eyes, so I figure, ‘Hey, let’s play up my voluptuous nature,’ let’s say. So we did and in that way were honest to the real comic book heroine.”
Nicolas, how frustrating is it that some people think your shirtless scene isn’t real?
Nicolas Cage: “Well, I guess on one hand it’s a compliment. But on the other hand, that’s a lot of hard work and it’s just getting written off that somebody just made did it digitally. It’s a little frustrating.”
Page 2: The Flaming Skull, Peter Fonda, and Kicking Butt
