Nick Cave on Nic Cage: “There has always been a persistent and somewhat perplexing confusion surrounding our names”

A lot of people get musician Nick Cave and actor Nicolas Cage confused, apparently. They’re both iconoclasts who stand around around 6′, like their hair slicked back, and have both played vampires. Last week, The Guardian ran an interview with Cage where they asked him about meeting Cave, and he said, “I don’t think a day goes by where I’m not mistaken for Nick Cave.”

Cage added, “People also say: ‘Hey, Nick, you were great in The Hunger, which is this great David Bowie movie [in which Cage doesn’t feature]. I do remember that Cave was very nice. We were at an animal sanctuary, I believe – I think Sealy Animal Hospital in Texas – and he was terrific. I said hello and wanted to shake his hand. I said: ‘Only one letter separates us – G. Nick Cave, Nick Cage.’”

Since that interview ran, fans have been asking Cave about it, sending in questions to to his Red Hand Files site. He’s answered them today. “There has always been a persistent and somewhat perplexing confusion surrounding our names,” noting he’d already mentioned it in a previous Red Hand Files missive back in 2022. He then shared a funny, particularly memorable and rather lurid experience of being confused for Nic Cage, and the story is too good to be read any way but in full:

Years ago, while living in São Paulo, I was walking home from a party or something and stopped at a bar for a nightcap. I was pretty drunk, it was very late, and the place was almost empty. I sat beside this young Brazilian guy at the bar and ordered a drink. He seemed a bit downcast, and so I asked him if he was alright. He said he was okay, and we started to talk. He was from a town in the north of Brazil and had come to São Paulo with his wife to look for work. He introduced himself to me. “I’m Diego,” he said. As he asked me my name, the barman leaned over and said to him, “Dude, you’re talking to fucking Nick Cave!” Diego suddenly became super-animated, jumping around on his stool, saying that he loved me, that he was my greatest fan, and so on and so forth. He kept looking at me, then at his drink, shaking his head in wonder and saying, “Nick Cave. Fucking Nick Cave.” Anyway, we sat there talking for a couple of hours, getting completely pissed, and then Diego started to turn maudlin. 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.”

Anyway, these confusions between me and Mr. Cage happen fairly often. But I don’t mind. I’m a fan. Have you guys seen Mandy? My God. What a film.

Love, Nick

Nick Cave’s North American Wild God tour wraps up this week with shows in Seattle and San Francisco ahead of this weekend’s Cruel World Festival in Pasadena. Nicolas Cage’s new thriller The Surfer is out now in theaters and on-demand.

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