The Real Story Of The Bizarre Nicolas Cage Cameo in Never on Tuesday

A bizarre clip of Nicolas Cage in the 1989 movie Never on Tuesday has gone viral thirty years after the fact. The movie, produced by Cassian Elwes, was a teen sex comedy that was not a hit and was never released on home video. But it was notable for having some big names in it, mostly as cameos. Nic Cage had already made a splash in movies like Raising Arizona and Moonstruck at the time, and Elwes was overwhelmed that he agreed to appear. Gothamist scored an interview with Elwes about the strange one-minute performance, in which Cage wears a fake nose, speaks in a falsetto voice, and comes across as reminiscent of Crispin Glover.

How did Nicolas Cage become involved? As I said, we made it very low-budget: under a million dollars. I made a movie called Oxford Blues a few years earlier with Rob Lowe and Ally Sheedy. I was hoping to get Rob Lowe to do that cameo in Never on Tuesday. At the last second, he couldn’t do it. We were scrambling—literally had like 48 hours to come up with a star. A friend of a friend said, “What about asking Nic Cage?” I was like, “Ask him!” Then he called me back and said, “Yeah, he’ll do it, but he wants to wear this nose in the movie.” I was like, “Tell him to come, bring the nose, no problem.” I didn’t know him at all.

Were you a fan? Yeah, a big fan. Nic was a huge star at that point. I can’t remember if Moonstruck was before that one? [Note: It was.] It was preceding Leaving Las Vegas, but he was already a huge young male star. So for him to come do this cameo in our film… Short of wearing a bag over his head, I was totally cool with whatever he wanted to do.

They just said, "Could he wear a fake nose?" I was like, “Sure!” I didn't know what it was gonna look like.

There's lots more to the story, which you can read at Gothamist.  (via Metafilter)