Joel Kinnaman's bizarre first encounter with Nicolas Cage
Many words have been used to describe Nicolas Cage over the years, but one that has never been ascribed to him is ‘normal’, as agreed by Joel Kinnaman.
(Credit: RLJE Films)
Film » Cutting Room Floor
Thu 13 February 2025 21:15, UK
There are many words that have been used to describe Nicolas Cage over the years, but one that has never been ascribed to him is ‘normal’. The Oscar winner is famous for his outlandish performances and larger-than-life persona off-screen, to the point where some people know him more as a meme than as an actor. One only has to listen to the testimonies of his co-stars to discover how bonkers he truly is, including this story from Joel Kinnaman.
The Swedish star spent a lot of time with Cage on the set of the 2023 movie Sympathy for the Devil. Kinnaman plays David Chamberlain, a man whose car is hijacked by a mysterious ‘Passenger’ (Cage) on the night his wife is due to give birth. Considering their characters spend most of the runtime together, Kinnaman got to know his co-worker very well. According to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, it didn’t take long for Cage’s legendary weirdness to rear its head.
“I knocked on his door, and when he opened it, he had pink hair,” the Suicide Squad actor said of the very first day of rehearsals for the movie. Just so you know, Cage’s character in Sympathy for the Devil doesn’t have pink hair, so this was entirely his own choice. The madness didn’t stop there. “He was like, ‘My wildcat fucking ran away for the third time,’” Kinnaman continued. “I then got a tour of his house, and he was like, ‘That’s my reptile manager.’”
Cage’s love for exotic animals is no secret. His in-house menagerie includes a crow, several snakes, an octopus, and (apparently) a wildcat with a tendency to run off. He’s also worked alongside animals in his movies, notably in 2021’s Pig, where he acts opposite a… well, a pig. That was pretty obvious. He also once owned a two-headed king cobra that he had to donate to a zoo after the heads kept fighting each other over meals. Oh, to live a day in his shoes.
Once he’d gotten over the initial shock of meeting Cage for the first time, Kinnaman was then introduced to another side of the performer – the consummate professional. “We went down to the basement to rehearse for the first time, and … he’d already spent countless hours working on the script to get to a point where he knew it by heart on the first day of rehearsal,” he recalled. “He’s a singular artist, and that’s why I pinched myself when I got to spend a month in a car with him, just soaking up his genius and lunacy.”
The Passenger is up there with Cage’s zaniest performances (which is really saying something). A demented, sadistic individual with a serious flair for the theatrical and a total disregard for human life, the character elevates what would otherwise be a by-the-books thriller and is easily the highlight of every single scene he’s in. Kinnaman does a decent enough job as the straight man, but this is a Cage vehicle through and through.
Werner Herzog once described Cage as a jazz musician, and that is precisely what he is. Jazz isn’t for everyone, but for those who appreciate it, there is no finer art form on Earth. Through sheer exposure, Kinnaman got to understand this and walked away with a newfound love for one of Hollywood’s greatest lunatics.
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Nicolas Cage