The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent hit theatres last week, and it’s been a hit with critics and audiences alike. The movie is currently “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes with an 87% audience score and an 87% critics score. ComicBook.com‘s Patrick Cavanaugh gave the movie a 4 out of 5 in his review and called it “a charming and authentic celebration of Nicolas Cage.” Not only does Nic Cage play himself in the film, but he also has a villainous alter ego, “Nicky Cage,” who encourages the actor to lean more into his movie star status. This version of Cage is based on the actor’s 1990 appearance on Wogan, so he had to be aged down in the new film. During a recent interview with Variety, the VFX team explained how they brought Nicky Cage to life.
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“Tom [Gormican] and Nic came up with the idea of Nicky from a specific persona that Nic created for an interview that he did on the Wogan show,” VFX supervisor Christopher Lance told Variety. “But we were actually going for the look of his face, maybe like five years or so after that. Because I think that was the most iconic string of roles for Nic, like from 1995 or so through 2000.”
“Everything that you’re seeing is Nic Cage acting,” Lance continued. “And we were respecting all the artistic expressiveness that he brought to the role. Really, all we were doing was the de-aging. There were no dots, no special lighting or anything like that. It was just Nic Cage performing. And no matter what the lighting condition was, we could just take that and run with it.”
“What we’ve done is set up a templating system that allows us to solve it once and then modify the details as needed. So you don’t have to rethink it every time,” digital makeup artist Erik Bruhweiler added. “The biggest challenge of de-aging someone like this is that you’re targeting what they actually looked like when they were younger. This had to be an accurate de-age of the actual person, Nicolas Cage because everyone knows his face.”
“It’s like cracking a safe,” Bruhweiler explained. “You’re sitting there listening and trying to get that little subtle detail that finally clicks it together.”
In honor of Massive Talent, some of the folks at ComicBook.com celebrated a Month of Cage. We have a Nic Cage streaming guide as well as a list of all the Cage films referenced in the new movie.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is now playing in theatres.
