Nicolas Cage is frightened that Hollywood will “steal” his face and physique as soon as he’s useless.
The “Face/Off” star admitted as a lot in an interview Monday with The New Yorker and, whereas he’s primarily involved about Hollywood’s burgeoning use of synthetic intelligence, Cage has additionally been used for viral web memes since 2009 — and he nonetheless isn’t used to it.
The subject got here up mid-interview when Cage famous he has to get a “scan” or two completed.
“Well, they have to put me in a computer and match my eye color and change — I don’t know,” he informed the outlet. “They’re just going to steal my body and do whatever they want with it via digital A.I. … God, I hope not A.I. I’m terrified of that. I’ve been very vocal about it.”
Cage has starred in 120 movies and has portrayed just about each archetype there may be, from reluctant hero and heartthrob to villainous vampire. The actor, who’s performed a resourceful thief — and has seen his face stolen on-screen earlier than — is now frightened about life imitating artwork.
“And it makes me wonder, you know, where will the truth of the artists end up?” Cage stated Monday. “Is it going to be replaced? Is it going to be transmogrified? Where’s the heartbeat going to be? I mean, what are you going to do with my body and my face when I’m dead?”
“I don’t want you to do anything with it!” the actor continued.
Cage isn’t the one star alarmed by the unreal use of his likeness, which turned a core topic of final 12 months’s SAG-AFTRA negotiations with main movie studios. Samuel L. Jackson beforehand urged actors to reject contracts containing the phrases “in perpetuity.”
Matt Winkelmeyer by way of Getty Pictures
Cage is already accustomed to his face being warped and wielded, nonetheless, because it’s been a template for viral memes for 15 years now. A montage of his most manic scenes has drawn 1 million views, in the meantime, and a discussion board on Reddit created in his honor boasts 153,000 customers.
The actor stated Monday that folks “become fascinated with movie stars” however basically meme them to demise “so fast” that it’s “almost become a joke” — solely to “dispose of them and go to the next guy.” Cage himself remains to be navigating simply how finest “to surf that” wave.
“I used to be in control of that. I don’t think I’m in control of that anymore,” he informed The New Yorker, including: “When I signed up to be a film actor, we didn’t have the Internet. We didn’t have cell phones with cameras. I didn’t know this was going to happen to me.”
