Nicolas Cage is comparing Superman to the stuff of angels.
The actor, who was infamously supposed to play Superman in the shelved Tim Burton film “Superman Lives,” recently revealed to USA Today that the 1998 romance film “City of Angels” was a taste of what Cage’s take on Clark Kent would have been.
Cage portrayed a fallen angel who begins a love affair with a mortal woman (Meg Ryan) in the English-language remake of German director Wim Wenders’ 1987 classic “Wings of Desire.”
“If you really wanted to know what I was going do with that character, look at my performance in ‘City of Angels,’” Cage said. “I was supposed [to play] Clark Kent after that [in ‘Superman Lives’], and I was already developing this alien otherness playing this angel. That is a perfect example of the tonality you would’ve gotten for Kal-El and for Clark Kent: Clark would’ve been a little more amusing but Kal-El [had] the sensitivity and the goodness and the vulnerability and all those feelings that were kind of angelic and also terrifying.”
Cage finally donned the Superman suit in the 2023 film “The Flash,” which showcased the multiverse of DC properties, including Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck playing two versions of Batman.
“Well, I was glad I didn’t blink,” Cage said of his cameo. “For me, it was the feeling of being actualized. Even that look for that particular character, finally seeing it on screen, was satisfying. But as I said, it’s quick.”
Cage spoke out on the canceled “Superman Lives” in 2022, telling Rolling Stone, “That’s always been both a positive and a negative to me. It’s a positive in that it left the character, and what Tim [Burton] and I might have gotten up to, in the realm of imagination — which is always more powerful than that is concrete. And a negative in that I think it would have been special. Is there a chance? Who knows.”
The “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” star also applauded Henry Cavill’s take on the superhero, citing his “feeling of alienness” onscreen in the Zack Snyder DC films prior to the overhaul of the DCU by new co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran. Gunn is directing the upcoming prequel “Superman: Legacy” starring David Corenswet as Superman and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane.
