Nicolas Cage has officially changed his legal name to Nicolas Cage.
Changing His Name
While this may seem confusing, Cage was born Nicolas Kim Coppola.
The actor adopted his “Nick Cage” stage name as his legal name last year. He shared the news with Variety on May 27th.
During the interview, he shared, “I am Nick Cage. I changed my name legally last year. I’m Nick Cage in life, and I’m Nick Cage on camera.”
He added, “‘Tis better to be the patriarch of my own little family than the clown cousin on the margins of someone else’s, so I decided I’m going to bring it on and be ‘Cage.'”
Cage had two points of inspiration for his last name. One was the fictional Marvel Comics character Luke Cage. The other was the avant-garde artist John Cage.
Plus, Nicolas Cage just wanted a “short and sweet” name.
Keeping ‘Nicolas’
While he changed his last name, Cage decided to keep “Nicolas.”
He explained, “I thought, well, I’ll keep the name ‘Nicolas’ because my father named me Nicolas — with French spelling, which has always frustrated me, because everyone adds an ‘h.’ I don’t know why he gave me the French spelling! But he did.”
As for preference between “Nick” or “Nicolas?” Cage doesn’t care.
He stated, “I’m both! I think people know me as both.”
Coppola Namesake
Nicolas Cage is the son of the late August Coppola, the older brother of Francis Ford Coppola and Talia Shire.
Other prominent members of the Coppola family include Sofia Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, plus Carmine Coppola. Carmine scored many of Francis’ films.
Other than a 1981 TV pilot and the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Cage has been credited as Nicolas Cage.
During the filming of Fast Times, Cage would constantly have people walk up to him and say, “I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning.”
The sentence referred to a famous line in his uncle Francis’ film, Apocalypse Now. The constant notoriety and comparisons made it hard to do his work, and Cage was tired of it.
He shared with Wired in 2022, “I decided, I don’t need this, and I changed it to Cage. It’s a combination of Luke Cage from Marvel Comics … and John Cage, the avant-garde composer. Speaks volumes about what I’ve been up to ever since.”
Upcoming Projects
If you want to watch Cage on the screen, he’s got a couple of new projects coming up. His next project is Spider-Noir, where Cage plays Ben Reilly/The Spider.
He previously voiced the character in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. All eight episodes of the series are available to stream in color or in black-and-white on MGM+ and Prime Video.
After that, Cage will take the helm of late NFL coach and broadcaster John Madden in the upcoming film Madden. The movie premieres on November 26th.