Cinematic icon Nicolas Cage and musical icon Nick Cave don't look much like each other, and they have very, very different voices. But they've got very similar names, and they're both intense, dark-haired white guys in their sixties, so people apparently get them constantly confused with one another. Last week, Nic Cage claimed that people mistake him for Nick Cave all the damn time in a Guardian interview. As in: "I don’t think there’s a day that goes by where I’m not mistaken for Nick Cave." Apparently, Cave has faced some of the same situations, and he's got a funny story about one of them.
That's right: Another Stereogum post where we quote from Nick Cave's Red Hand Files newsletter at length! What can we say? Nick Cave has good stories, and we appreciate the content. Cave has already written about being confused for Cage. In his latest newsletter, Cave answers a couple of fan questions about the Cave interview, and he tells an anecdote about going out to a bar one night when he was living in São Paulo. In that bar, he met a very sad individual named Diego, who lit up when the bartender told him that he was talking to Nick Cave. He told Cave that he was his biggest fan, and the two of them got drunk together before Diego "started to turn maudlin." Here's Cave's account of what happened next:
I asked him again if he was alright, and he burst into tears and said, "My wife kicked me out. Told me never to come back. She says she hates me." I was drunk, so I hugged him and asked, “Why does she hate you?” He said, “She thinks I’m stupid.” Then he pointed at me and said, “But she fucking loves you. Just completely loves you.” I said, “Really?” He replied, “Yeah, Peggy Sue Got Married is her favourite film. She’s watched it like a hundred times.” Then Diego started crying again. I was about to explain that he’d made a mistake and mixed me up with the actor, Nicolas Cage, but he looked up at me with such a pitiful mixture of tragedy and wonder that I didn’t have the heart. “She just loves you, man,” he said. Then he asked me about my acting career. I said something like, “I’m just an ordinary person like you. Hollywood is not all it’s cracked up to be. It can be a cruel place. It gets lonely sometimes,” and so on. After a while, I began to warm to my theme. I told him that making Raising Arizona was the most extraordinary experience and a highpoint in my career, that John Goodman was a fascinating and complex character, and how it was a real privilege to work with the Coen brothers and that they were "masters of their craft" and all this bullshit. Eventually, Diego decided he should go back home and tell his wife, Ana, that he’d met her favourite actor, and that Nick Cave says he’s not stupid, and that he’s a good guy. Then he suggested that I come home with him and put in a good word. I tried to dissuade him, telling him that it was impossible as I had to be on a movie set early in the morning. Eventually, he relented, and instead we got a pen and a piece of paper from the barman, and I wrote --
Dear Ana, Diego is not stupid. He’s a good guy. Love, Nic Cage.
Diego hugged and kissed me and stumbled out of the door, waving the note in his hand. The barman leaned over and said, “His wife’s got a point.”
That's good shit. Cave goes on to say that he's a fan of Cage and he endorses Mandy, a great movie. Subscribe to The Red Hand Files here.
