Nicholas Cage sings two Elvis songs in the movie. Where did that come from?
That came another strange way. Somewhere during rehearsals we started talking about Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. So I got a copy of Elvis’s Golden Hits and took it home and listened to it. I got an idea, and called Nicholas, and told him he had to sing. We went to the studio and he sang those songs, and he did a beautiful job. Then he called me one day and asked me if he could wear a snakeskin jacket. It thought it was perfect, so I wrote that into the script, too. For me, the joy of film-making is that many people tune in to something, one thing leads to another, and you’re off on a fantastic trip. Nicholas has a reputation for being somewhat wild himself. Was he hard to direct? No. He was fantastic. He loves ideas and trying things. I call him the jazz musician of actors. He’s a jazz actor. He’s just totally into abstractions, and strange angles on human emotions, and combining things. He likes to come up with ideas, and he has a way of making it work and making it real. Every good acto
