Talkin' about the weather with Cage | Interviews
5. In the movie, the Caine character finds his son a lasting disappointment. "He's not exactly cruel, although he does inflict horrible wounds in his kindly advice that just makes you want to kill yourself. In between setups, Caine would refer to my character as a loser, and I knew right then what the dynamic of the father-son relationship would be like."
6. They shot in Chicago in the winter, using artificial snow when the real stuff wasn't on the ground: "I actually got to the movie later than intended because I was shooting another picture. When I arrived, we had a month of snow, and then we started building artificial snow. To be honest, I was relieved by that, because it's impossible to act when you're freezing. You can't relax when you're shaking and shivering. I learned that on 'Moonstruck,' back in Brooklyn."
7. Cage won his Oscar for "Leaving Last Vegas" (1995), where he gave an unforgettable performance as an alcoholic who goes to Vegas to drink himself to death, and finds a hooker (Elizabeth Shue) who pities him and eases his journey toward oblivion.
"It was so amazing how that worked out. We shot it so quickly, in just over three weeks, it just flowed out of everybody. Mike Figgis [the director] is like music, he is music, he had music playing on the set. Elizabeth Shue was very relaxed, there was nothing painful at all about the experience, and it just was one of those magical moments when all the elements came together perfectly. The irony was, when I made the movie everyone said it was career death. I told them I'm never going to win an Academy Award anyway, so let me do this and just let me express myself the way I want to."
8. "The Weather Man" is a big studio production with a big budget and a big star, but it's written and played like an art picture. Is that a contradiction?
"It's very risky for an actor who's a bankable star to make pictures like 'The Weather Man' or 'Lord of War' [also in current release], because they inevitably promote them like big studio releases. And they're not big studio movies, they're more edgy, thought-provoking, independent-spirited films. What happens is, it goes into the computer, and everyone says they can't open the movie because they thought it was X when it actually was Y.
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