Say what you’ll about Nicholas Cage, he all the time goes for it in no matter film he’s in. The newly launched Longlegs has stored him out of the film’s advertising and marketing in a direct capability, however slivers of footage and pre-release hype about his reportedly freaky look have drawn quite a lot of consideration. And in taking part in the titular serial killer focusing on households, Cage used components of his family historical past to tell his efficiency.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Cage recalled a second from his childhood the place he noticed his mom Pleasure Vogelsang placing on Noxzema chilly cream. Being two on the time, he remembers seeing her “flip her face actually quick and stared at me after [putting on] the chilly cream. The whiteness of [it] simply actually spooked me.” Within the movie, Longlegs has a ghastly white complexion much like that second with Cage’s mom, however and not using a clear motive. The actor doesn’t have a particular motive as for why his character is so white, however famous the “unusual connection” between killer and shade. “He says it’s only a pressure he’s conscious of, and also you don’t query it an excessive amount of,” Cage notes. “He is aware of it when he sees it.”
Efficiency-wise, Cage beforehand referred to as this a “deeply private” position owing to his mom’s schizophrenia all through her life. In June, he advised EW about how she’d speak in poetic phrases, one thing he additionally introduced into Longlegs. To Cage, the character is a tragic determine as a result of he’s “on the mercy of those voices speaking to him.” Forward of taking pictures in early 2023, he’d document his efficiency on his telephone to nail the character’s “rhythms and melodies. […] By the point I obtained on set, it was so dialed in and have become virtually like performing a track or a little bit of music.”
Cage’s interview additionally incorporates Longlegs spoilers, so in the event you haven’t seen the movie but, don’t go previous the banner beneath.
Within the movie’s climax, Maika Monroe’s Harker lastly comes face-to-face with Longlegs, who’s been giving dolls possessed with Satanic vitality to households of ladies born on particular days. It’s ultimately revealed that he’d focused her as a younger woman, however was spared due to her mom’s intervention. The assembly the place they “reunite,” and Longlegs’ suicide in entrance of her, is why Cage joined the movie within the first place. The 2 actors didn’t socialize previous to that time–a transfer he believes was intentional from director Osgood Perkins–and he’d been actually wanting ahead to the “explosive” encounter between their characters.
Seems, the scene has a meta layer added onto it. Cage professed to being a fan of Monroe and her horror chops in movies like It Follows and Watcher. Like with some audiences, It Follows was his first time seeing her, and he referred to as the movie “certainly one of my favorites within the style.” Cheekily, he additionally drew parallels between the adoration for his costar and Longlegs’ years-long obsession with Harker, calling her “a hero of kinds” his character lastly had the pleasure of assembly.
Earlier than that time, the film goes out of its option to not shoot Longlegs immediately. As an alternative, he’s glimpsed by way of totally different angles or reflections. Perkins defined it as exhibiting how the killer left such an impression on Harker as a baby, at the same time as she supressed that reminiscence. He’s there, in a way, stated Perkins, however he’s “completely not there, however [also] completely there.”
From the pre-release buzz, Cage is delivering a reasonably unnerving (complimentary!) efficiency in Longlegs that’s sufficient to get people to see it in droves. After seeing him accomplish that many roles over the many years, it’s good to know that he can discover new methods to freak folks the hell out.
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