Nicolas Cage Officially Changes His Name, He Doesn't Want to Be Haunted by the Coppola Family

JAKARTA - Nicolas Cage apparently only officially inaugurated his stage name legally last year. The Oscar-winning actor was born with the name Nicolas Kim Coppola, but now his official name is Nicolas Cage.

Quoted from People, Thursday, May 28, Cage revealed this in an interview with Variety which was published Wednesday, May 27.

"I'm Nick Cage. I legally changed my name last year," the Spider-Noir star said.

Cage said he preferred being the head of his own little family to being a "clown cousin" on the fringes of someone else's family.

Cage is the son of the late August Coppola. He is also the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire. The family gave birth to many famous names, including Sofia Coppola and Jason Schwartzman.

The name "Cage" was inspired by Luke Cage, a Marvel Comics character, and John Cage, an avant-garde artist. Cage said he was looking for a short, strong, and memorable name, like James Dean.

Even though he changed his last name, he still kept "Nicolas". The name was given by his father with the French spelling, without the letter "h".

Cage said he didn't mind being called "Nick" or "Nicolas".

"I'm both. I think people know me by those two names," he said.

Throughout his career, Cage almost always used the name Nicolas Cage. The exception only appeared in the 1981 television pilot and the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

While working on Fast Times, he admitted that he was often teased because of Coppola's name. People made jokes that referred to the famous dialogue from Apocalypse Now, his uncle's film, Francis Ford Coppola.

The disturbance made him feel the need to take a distance.

"I decided, I don't need this, and I turned it into Cage," Cage told Wired in 2022.

Now, Cage stars in Spider-Noir, a series inspired by Marvel's Spider-Man: Noir comic. In the series, he plays Ben Reilly/The Spider, a character he voiced in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

The eight-episode series is available in both color and black-and-white versions on MGM+ as well as Prime Video.

Cage also stars in Madden, a film about late NFL coach and broadcaster John Madden, which is scheduled to hit theaters on November 26.