Nicolas Cage never wanted to be a meme

Some of us best remember Nicolas Cage in dramatic turns like Leaving Las Vegas and Adaptation. For others, it’s his eccentric behaviors like buying dinosaur skulls or remembering his time in the womb. And then there’s the group that sees Nicolas Cage and thinks nothing but the seemingly endless memes. And yes, Cage is well aware of his fame within the meme kingdom. You don’t say!

Nicolas Cage acknowledged his place in various memes by telling The Guardian, “I might have been the first actor who went through a kind of meme-ification…One person had cherrypicked from all these different movies where I was having meltdowns, but without any regard for how the character got to that place. I was frustrated because I didn’t know what people were taking from the movies other than that.” Here, the actor is referring to the “Nic Cage Losing His Shit” video, the original version of which had over nine million views.

Regarding this fame within internet-driven memes, Nicolas Cage continued, “I didn’t understand how to process what was happening. I got into acting because I was moved by film performance more than any other art form. I didn’t get into movies to become a meme. That was new. I made friends with it but it was an adjustment…I thought maybe they would compel someone to go back and look at the movies. But I had no control over it.” In Cage’s defense here, I hadn’t actually seen Vampire’s Kiss until being bombarded with its associated meme…

As far as specific Nicolas Cage memes go, well, there are quite a few to choose from depending on your fancy. According to Know Your Meme, Nicolas Cage is the subject – either directly or indirectly – of at least a half-dozen of them. One of the earliest centered around his remake of The Wicker Man, which was so laughably bad that it became a nearly instant joke among the masses, particularly the scene in which his character gets swarmed by bees. He, too, was (almost?) proven to be a vampire when a “photo from 1870” claimed to feature Cage. And who can live without the gif from Con Air of the wind blowing in Nicolas Cage’s luscious locks?

Nicolas Cage can next be seen in this month’s Dream Scenario, which our own Chris Bumbray gave a 7/10 out of TIFF.

Which Nicolas Cage movie or performance is overdue for the meme treatment? What’s your favorite Cage meme?