Nicolas Cage said in an interview for The New Yorker that he is scared of AI and is hoping to use AI technology to recreate his recent body scans for two upcoming projects on screen after his death. Not to be used as reference.
Cage is currently attached to star in MGM+ and Amazon Prime Video's live-action Spider-Man Noir series, which will return him to the tentpole space and give him his most prominent television role to date. He admitted that television never appealed to him, but “what interested me was that I could find time to express myself.”
“I saw Bryan Cranston in 'Breaking Bad' staring at a suitcase for half an episode,” Cage said. “Just him looking at a suitcase on the floor, going, 'What's in this? Do I do it? Don't I do it?' I thought, 'We don't have time to do that in the movies.' So this seemed like an opportunity for me to open it up a little bit. I don't know if the project I'm looking for has scope for this. I think it's more of a popcorn entertainment episodic.
Cage was referring to the Spider-Man Noir project, which he said was “eight episodes” and “more of a pop art mashup, like a Lichtenstein painting” with “some sheen to it.” “
“I don't like violence. I don't want to play people who are hurting people. One of the things I like about this potential show is that it's fantasy. “It's not really. That people kill people. Monsters are involved.”
Cage also revealed that he had to end his interview with The New Yorker early because “I have to go out to get a scan for the show afterwards, and then for the film I'm doing after the show. Two scans a day!
“They have to put me in the computer and match my eye color and change — I don't know,” he said. “They're just going to steal my body and do whatever they want with it with digital AI. … God, I hope not AI. I'm scared of it. I'm very vocal about it. . . . And it makes me wonder, how far will the artists go? Is it going to be transmogrified? I mean, when I die If I go, what will you do with my body and my face? I don't want you to do anything with it!”
Cage also said during the interview that he's not too interested in starring in $100 million tentpoles at this point in his career, though he's not opposed to them if the right project comes his way. The Oscar winner says recent roles in indie dramas like “Pig” and “Dream Scenario” are in line with his career interests in telling the human drama “right in your face.”
“People want to learn something from these characters. I'm interested in 50mm, right in your face — I'm interested in psychology,” Cage said. “I want to see people going through their struggles and their celebrations and relate to it, or find something out of it that makes me feel less alone in some way. I'm not interested, you. You know, a $100 million sci-fi. I love sci-fi, but I don't necessarily go to a movie for the spectacle.
“I like films about people – that's just my taste – and short stories,” he continued. That is why I am attracted to independent film. That doesn't mean I won't do more adventure films, or that I won't do anything that's more popcorn. I'm thinking about it right now as we speak. But the films that made me want to be a film actor are films like Elia Kazan, or 'Raging Bull' – films that were about people struggling with life's problems.
Cage's next project is the Osgood Perkins horror film “Longlegs,” in which the actor plays a chilling serial killer. To read Cage's full interview, visit The New Yorker's website.