Austin correspondent Annie Lyons reports from the SXSW 2022 red carpet for Tom Gormican’s big-hearted new action-comedy, which stars Nicolas Cage as ‘Nick Cage’. 

“I felt like I had to protect myself, you know? I wanted to make sure I didn’t ever collapse into the realm of mockery.”—Nicolas Cage 

Sitting in a packed-out audience that includes Nicolas Cage, watching the world premiere of “a campy blockbuster” in which Cage, playing himself, watches himself in a movie: these are the moments that SXSW is made for. 

As the actor, resplendent in a red tartan suit, told us on the extremely jolly red carpet for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, “This isn’t like a buyer’s film festival, or acquisitions, this is just people just colliding and talking and sharing ideas.”

Cage was full of enthusiastic praise for the whole vibe of SXSW, not just because “I haven’t been to a movie in over a year, with a live audience, in a cinema,” but also because of the vibe that only SXSW an crowd brings: “I’m with a group of people that are genuine film enthusiasts, and music enthusiasts, and gaming enthusiasts.” 

The second big premiere at SXSW 2022 after Everything Everywhere All at Once (which we covered here), The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is certainly the best film so far this year to spend time on the glory that is Paddington 2. (As Paddington photoshop genius JaytheChou writes, “You KNOW why I gave this film 5 stars”.) It also earns points for a charming bromance between Cage and his co-star, Pedro Pascal, which plenty of Letterboxd reviewers had time for. 

Written by Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten and directed by Gormican, the caper is an unabashed love letter to four decades of Cage on screen. The star plays an unfulfilled and financially precarious ‘Nick Cage’, who is reduced to making a paid appearance at a dangerous superfan’s birthday. The action kicks into gear when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative, and must channel his most iconic characters in order to save the day. References and homages abound; more than one Letterboxd member remarking that the film feels custom-made for “film Twitter”. 

It is, writes Bretton, “one of the most unique studio comedies in years”, and “the most elevated and hilarious dad movie,” according to Dillon. “This was super funny, had some really great heart, and I think it took Nicholas Cage some real guts as an actor to portray himself in this sometimes harsh light,” writes Ryan. 

Given his propensity to throw himself into research—working with chefs to get hand movements right for the tremendous Pig, going deep into Japanese culture for Sion Sono’s Prisoners of the Ghostland, to name just two of Cage’s most recent film appearances—we told the star we were curious about his preparation for, well, playing himself. 

“I had never done anything similar, except for maybe Adaptation,” Cage told Letterboxd. “It was a brand new experience, and there was no reference point for anything like that in the last 43 years. 

“I had to find a way to facilitate Tom Gormican’s vision, his interpretation of so-called ‘Nick Cage’—whatever he picked up from my aura or from the internet’s perception of me or whatever it was, whatever he may have read about me—and give him what he needed.”

Cage cautions that there is also a person inside him “that’s protecting whatever it is that I’ve done for the last 43 years” and that “there were moments where I felt, ‘I’m not doing it, that’s not me, that’s a bridge too far’.  

“I felt like I had to protect myself, you know? I wanted to make sure I didn’t ever collapse into the realm of mockery. So there was that balancing act that was constantly internally happening on the set. And most of it was a lot of fun, most of it we had a lot of laughs and we found the humor together.” 

Unbearable Weight already has its fans on Letterboxd. “His chemistry with himself makes sparks fly,” writes Grey G, while Squishh declares the film simply unrateable: “Nic Cage goofing off and being himself for 105 minutes simply can not be rated on any measurable scale. Anybody that tries to do so on this website is a LIAR.”

‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ is scheduled for release on April 22, 2022 via Lionsgate. 

Pictured: Pedro Pascal and Nicolas Cage.
  
—Reporting by Annie Lyons (in Austin), additional reporting by Gemma Gracewood (at Letterboxd HQ)