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There aren’t many actors who’ve had a more fascinating career arc than Nicolas Cage.
After all, we’re talking about someone who changed his name to distance himself from the reputation that comes with being the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola, won an Academy Award for Best Actor thanks to his performance in Leaving Las Vegas, spent a solid decade seemingly accepting any and every role he was offered, and has since embarked on an incredibly refreshing (and equally welcome) second act.
Of course, you can’t talk about the man familiarly referred to as “Nic Cage” without discussing his wildly eccentric personality and the many, many stories that have contributed to the mystique surrounding the Hollywood icon.
The fact that he makes a living as an entertainer can make it a bit difficult to figure out where to draw the line between The Actor and The Person thanks to Cage’s impressive ability to commit to every bit he sets his mind to (one that becomes increasingly blurred when you consider he played himself in a movie inspired by his career).
However, it seems like his personal life looks exactly like most people would think based on the brief but telling glimpse he recently provided to 60 Minutes.
Cage recently sat down with Sharyn Alfonsi for a wide-ranging interview that appropriately began when the actor invited her to join him for a joyride in the gold Lamborghini he partially purchased because it reminded him of a scene from a Federico Fellini movie.
However, the bulk of the conversation took place inside the Las Vegas mansion Cage calls home, and it’s hard to imagine a more on-brand residence for the actor than a modern castle that’s home to a menagerie that includes a turtle, a “black dragon” (actually a monitor lizard), and, of course, the foul-mouth pet crow named “Hoogan” that resides in a mesh cage in a living room.
The entire segment is worth a watch, but the tiny peek into the place Cage calls home speaks volumes about who he really is.