Nicolas Cage dealt with some choppy waters preparing for his latest thriller, “The Surfer.”
Cage, 61, stars as an unnamed businessman in the Lorcan Finnegan-directed drama that sees his character return home to Australia to buy the beach house he grew up in.
But despite the film’s title, Cage does very little surfing in the movie – and it’s not just because a group of local bullies repeatedly prevent him from entering the water.
“We had things like weather conditions and believe it or not, shark reports and things, all that s–t,” the “National Treasure” star told
Cage needed to take surfing lessons in preparation for the role because he was “pounded to smithereens” when he tried surfing in the past.
“I have surfed, but every time I’ve attempted surfing, I’ve been pounded to smithereens,” he laughed regarding one incident in Malibu decades earlier. “I surfed down on Sunset Beach. When I was trying to learn, my teacher gave me a shortboard. I said, ‘Look, I want a long board.’”
“I just got pounded and literally got stuck in the rip tide, and they said they saw my board, they call it ‘tombstone,’ like that triangle top,” Cage continued. “I’m climbing up the leash as I’m somersaulting, and I could have died.”
“Now I have a young kid,” the added. “I don’t know if I want to do it anymore.”
Still, Cage dreams of surfing once he finally retires from acting.
“The goal,” he declared, “is to retire, surf, drink red wine, and eat spaghetti.”
Elsewhere during his interview, Cage explained how he and Finnegan were unable to shoot certain scenes because of the “Face/Off” actor’s poor surfing skills.
“Lorcan and I talked at length about it,” he admitted. “He knows that I wish I could have gotten to that point.”
Plus, while Cage “loves the way the movie ends” and “wouldn’t change a frame,” he wanted to recreate a scene from a popular 1979 surfing movie, “Big Wednesday,” that starred Jan-Michael Vincent.
“I seem to remember in my mind’s eye, Jan-Michael Vincent on the board and then the board wiping across the frame,” Cage recalled. “It was so beautiful in the water with the wiping of the board and then landing on its face in slow motion.”
“I thought, gee, I really want to get that shot,” he said, “but I didn’t have the time to get my skills to the point where we could do it.”
As for his only regret filming “The Surfer,” Cage wished that the paparazzi had gotten fewer shots of him wiping out on his surfboard.
“They didn’t get the one shot of me standing on the board,” he quipped.
The release of “The Surfer” on Friday comes months after Cage’s ex, Christina Fulton, the actor and their 34-year-old son, Weston Cage.
