Nicolas Cage explains how he founded his career on David Bowie’s advice

Nicholas Cage has acted in so many cult films – from Fast times at Ridgemont High and Con Air to Face/Off and National Treasure — and he’s made every character he’s ever played his own. So what does David Bowie has anything to do with it? It seems Cage had the opportunity to consult Bowie a long time ago, and it was career-changing for the actor.

Bowie was such a legendary musician who reinvented himself many times throughout his musical career. His various personalities include Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, the Thin White Duke and the Blind Prophet, and his music has withstood the test of time long after his death in 2016. At this point it might be clear how a lesson in reinvention would be helpful for an actor, but Cage detailed how it came about in a recent interview with ScreenRant.

“I see myself as a student of film performance and I need to challenge myself. And I have to find things in my past, in my memories, in my imagination, in my dreams, to get to a point where I don’t feel like I’m acting. I want it to feel authentic so the audience is with me. And what I want to say is that I’m a student and I want to find characters that challenge me. Maybe they don’t all work. But maybe I’ve learned something if they work. Or I will have learned something even if they don’t work. The idea is never to feel comfortable and that’s what keeps people going I guess.

I even once asked David Bowie, “How did you do that? How did you keep reinventing yourself?” And the wise man said, “Well, I just never felt comfortable with what I was doing.” And I took those words to heart. So when I have a project ahead of me, I need to know that I have something to contribute. But to answer your question, where is it really coming from? And that’s a bit mysterious too. There’s something magical about it. I do not really know.”

Cage receives mixed reviews as he is credited as the same character in every film and is the most talented actor in the business. It depends on a fan’s taste, but his fans love him because Cage is still very relevant in an art form that would have discarded him long ago had he not known how to play. It would be really great to hear what Bowie has to say about the greeting the actor just gave him.