Wanker of the Week – Nicholas Cage.

It’s been a while, I know, since Wanker of the Week raised its head and splattered the verbal diarrhoea of the rich and famous into our collective consciousness, but while eating a bacon and sausage butty and perusing the BBC news website, I came across an interview with Nicholas Cage and it became clear that wanker of the week needed to make a comeback.

Now it’s long been a suspicion of mine that Nicholas Cage might just be a weapons grade bell-end. After all, what normal, self respecting human being would a)agree to be in the film Con Air and b) utter the line ‘Put the bunny in the box’ in a menacing manner without so much as a hint of irony? Con Air is a film of such breath taking stupidity that everyone else in it had the sense to ham it up good and proper. Not so Cage, who clearly believed every moment of this very expensive sack of shit.

And so now the follicly reduced Mr Cage has a new film, Ghostrider, Spirit of Vengeance, 3D. That’s not a promising title. It’s a title that suggests perhaps $400m was spent on CGI effects and $36.40 on the script. And if the verbal dysentery that Cage has unleashed on the press is anything to go by, bet a box of popcorn and an overpriced bucket of Fanta that I’m right.

So, what has Cage had to say on the matter? Let’s peruse…

Apparently he is “beginning to like the word actor less and less because in his work he’s ‘interested in the truth’”. Ok, well leaving aside the fact that you might not like the word ‘actor’ Nick, this is in fact what you are. Not the Dalai Lama, a spiritual guru or defender of the faith. You are an actor. Someone writes some shit, you learn it then someone puts makeup on you and you spout it out in front of cameras. And can you tell me, because I’m just dying to know, which particular ‘truth’ it is that you’re exploring with ‘Ghostrider, Spirit of Vengeance, 3D’? I suspect you don’t like the word ‘twat’ but hey, if the cap fits….

While filming, he stayed in character on set, he asked the director if he could wear a mask because he was concerned with feeling ridiculous on set. Might I politely suggest Nick, that more would have been achieved by just remaining silent for the duration of the shoot? After all, if you continue to let your mouth aimlessly flap and all this nonsense to fall out, all that’s going to happen is that you look like a knob in a stupid mask, rather than just a knob.

He located mystical objects to carry about, “I would gather things together to wear in my wardrobe, like a bit of Egyptian artefacts from a pyramid and I would sew them in, or get some rocks together that had a frequency in the new age community”. Dear god. How is filling your trousers with rocks going to help you more accurately spout your lines while wearing makeup and posing in front of a green screen exactly? Surely it’s just going to leave you at risk of losing your kecks partway through shooting as gravity takes a firm hold of your rocks, so to speak, and gives them a good tug.

But wait, I’ve got ahead of myself, here’s Nicholas to explain what’s going on. “Whether they work or not – or you believe or not, if you’re an actor and you give yourself over to it, it can stimulate your imagination and your psyche to believe that you’re the Ghost Rider”. Well quite. Is anyone else getting flashbacks to Team America, World Police?

“I saw the fear in the other actor’s eyes and that only inspired me more to believe I was this spirit from another dimension”. Nicholas, you were a man in a painted on mask with pants full of mystic rocks, warbling utter bullshit and making no sense. Is it possible that perhaps the fear in their eyes was not so much down to your awe inspiring and inspirational portrayal of a spirit from another dimension but an entirely justified concern that you’d let go of the plot entirely and their personal safety was in jeopardy?

If you were still in doubt as to whether Mr Cage is indeed a worthy wanker of the week, his final words ought to set your mind at ease, “I have to find characters that allow me to realise, in the true sense of the word, my abstract dreams as a film maker. That means if I want to act the way I perceive a painting, like a Van Gogh when things are a bit twisted, or a Francis Bacon, that means I have to find a character who is outside of our reference point, or has a problem of some sort that enables me to act that way. I can act pretty outside the box”. Leaving aside the fact that comparing his box office drivel to Van Gogh or Francis Bacon is pretty laughable, that last paragraph is full of so much self indulgent bullshit that I wouldn’t even know where to start dissecting it. You don’t ‘act outside the box’ Nicholas, you play the same knobhead in every film, the only things that change are the set and the backstory. You are not an artistic genius who is inspiring us with your seminal works, you are a Hollywood blockbuster star whose films contain less artistic merit than a tampon advert.

So Nicholas Cage, you are a very worthy winner of the Wanker of the Week award. Don’t bother coming to collect it, I’ll post it to you, I don’t think any of us could survive the acceptance speech….