Nicolas Cage’s Involvement in The Wicker Man Script and Creating the Backstory: “Like a good producer, he’s someone who brought me into the mix and in the material, and was interested in the way I wanted to take it. He lets you go off and write the thing and then responds accordingly throughout the process. He still liked the idea of this guy being connected someway to being a Christian or to being – there’s even a flavor of a not quite New Age, but somebody who’s really into self-help material.
You see he’s a motorcycle cop but it was like Nick has a really interesting look in this movie in that he seems quite out of place. He’s on this island, but he’s also going to see this woman that he’s known years ago, so he’s wearing like a shirt and a tie and jacket, with like cuffs or with elbow pads. He looks completely out of place. Now he very easily could have been a Nick Lachey of a motorcycle cop, a very blue collar, but he wouldn’t have stood out in the same way that he did after Nick said, ‘I think this is a great way to go with this character – a guy who’s constantly trying to improve himself. Anytime that we could find a place that took it off the map slightly that way, he was responsible for a lot of that.
[Nicolas Cage] was a guy who didn’t come to work with much to prove. At a relatively young age he’s got awards, he’s got money. He could glide through a movie, but he comes eager to work and comes with ideas. There were I won’t say many, but there were several times during the work day where Nick would come back while we’re shooting - in the middle of shooting a scene – like after lunch and think, ‘Hey, what if this happened?’ And you’d think, ‘What would happen is we’d be here for another six hours because we’ve been going in one direction. But it’s a really good idea so are you willing to stay here for another six hours and shoot it both ways so we’ll have it?’ He was like, ‘Yeah,’ because if it meant something to him it was worth him investing in that.
It’s nice to see somebody who, as a producer, thinks like a producer. He’s not just an actor who’s able to come into the cutting room and see how you’re doing with his performance. He’s worried about the whole thing from the beginning to now, to going out and making sure that an audience hears about the movie. You can’t ask really for more than that. That’s the third time that I’ve worked with an actor who is also producing and I’ve had a good time every time. I think they feel a freedom. They’re so used to taking this thing that is their performance and going, ‘Here you go. Please be nice to it,’ and then not knowing until the premiere when they sit and watch it and they’re like hoping that it’s good. Here they get the opportunity to not just watch how you’re building that, but how you’re building the whole movie. That power’s not ever been abused, from my point of view. It’s been good.”
