From the Sci-Fi Wire:
Eva Mendes, who co-stars with Nicolas Cage in the upcoming Ghost Rider, told SCI FI Wire that Cage had an unorthodox way of getting into his character. “He would have the script, and he would come to the set and do the opposite of what was on the page,” Mendes said at the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention last week. “Nic would take it to another level.”
In some places, that level would be called being a lousy actor. Or maybe just a bat-shit crazy one.
“Every time, he would get me, because he does this great thing where he turns things upside down, and he doesn’t play it the obvious way,” Mendes said, adding: “He just kind of flips it. Then he can make the most mundane sentences sound really heavy. I was like, ‘How do I do that?’ I actually made heavy sentences sound mundane. I think he’s so into what he’s doing. He’s such a professional.”
Mundane sentences like, say, “Killing me won’t bring back your goddamn honey“?
Mendes is the same woman, it’s maybe worth noting, whose own acting choices on the Ghost Rider movie have apparently been along the lines of making her breasts bigger. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, necessarily.) I;m really starting to wonder if all the Rider haters out there aren’t right about the film. Maybe it really is going to suck.
Nic Cage making a pretentious fool of himself in a comic movie with a ludicrous premise? Damn! Where do I stand in line to see that one?
That’s not sarcasm. That’s genuine eagerness!
Well sure, a story about a stunt motorcyclist who sells his soul to the devil to save his mentor and then has that soul bonded to an evil demon/spirit of vengeance with a flaming skull, enchanted chains, and a fiery motorcycle that make him a hellblazing vigilante sounds ludicrous on paper — but that’s why you need Nic Cage to come in and kind of flip that paper and go all actor-like on it!