Nicolas Cage Admits He Asked His Uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, for Role in The Godfather Part 3

Nicolas Cage has over 100 acting credits to his name. The star got his start in the early 1980s and like so many people in Hollywood, moviemaking is a family affair. Cage was born Nicolas Kim Coppola, making him the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, who is best known for directing films such as The Godfather, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. Cage recently took part in an actors’ roundtable for The Hollywood Reporter with Andrew Garfield, Simon Rex, Jonathan Majors, and Peter Dinklage. During the chat, the men were asked, “What’s a movie that you would love to make, but don’t think anyone would let you?” 

“This is a very embarrassing answer to your question, OK, because it involves family,” Cage replied. “So Uncle [Francis Ford Coppola] was doing Godfather III, and I said, ‘I really think I ought to be in your movie, Uncle. I really think it’s a good idea if you would cast me. I think I could play this part.’ He was going to cast Andy Garcia, and I said, ‘But I just see myself more as James Caan’s son, and he’s playing Sonny’s son. He’s not playing Michael’s son. He’s Sonny’s son. I just feel a little more James Caan.’ It just wasn’t going to happen. Nope, not going to happen. So that was a movie I didn’t get let in that I really wanted to be in. There.”

Cage may not have landed his dream role in the 1990 threequel, but his uncle did direct him in other films. Cage was featured in Coppola’s Rumble Fish (1983) and The Cotton Club (1984) and also starred in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986). Cage just turned 58 this week, and there’s still plenty to look forward to from the Oscar-winning actor. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cage spoke about the current status of his career and revealed if he has any plans to retire.

“At my age, the job that I have is to stay interested, because if I’m not interested, you’re not going to be interested,” Cage explained. “It gets more difficult the older we get. So I have to find new ways of expressing myself, new challenges. But I do think, God willing, that once I finish the next two movies, I’m going to take some time off, because I think it’s time to recharge.”

“No, no, no. No, no. That can’t happen,” Cage said of retirement. “To do what I do in cinema has been like a guardian angel for me, and I need it. I’m healthier when I’m working, I need a positive place to express my life experience, and filmmaking has given me that. So I’m never going to retire. Where are we now, 117 movies? [Laughs] What’s funny is, my argument with people who go, ‘You work too much,’ was ‘I like working, and it’s healthy, I’m happy when I’m working, and by the way, guys like Cagney and Bogart, they were doing hundreds of movies.’ And then I went, ‘I’d better check that,’ and I went, ‘Oops.’ [Laughs] Jerry Lewis was one of my friends, and he and I would go and have dinner together, and he would say, ‘How many movies you got?’ I go, ‘I got about 100, how many you got?’ ‘I got 40. So you got twice as much as me?’ ‘Well, I didn’t know that, Jerry.’”

You can currently watch Nic Cage’s latest hit, Pig, on Hulu.