Longlegs director Osgood Perkins on landing Nicolas Cage for his terrifying horror thriller
In a Q interview, Perkins talks about working with the Academy Award winner
According to Osgood "Oz" Perkins — writer and director of the hit horror film Longlegs — when you're making a movie, there are things you can control and things you can't, and it's important to know which is which.
In an interview with Q host Tom Power, he explains that the script is an example of something you can control.
"I'm in control of the words: how they look and how they feel and how they move, and the rhythm of things in the narrative," he says.
Casting, on the other hand, is outside of your control. You can hope that if the words are good enough "they get to the right people," but to insist that your mid-to-low budget horror movie has a Hollywood A-lister in it is "folly."
"Unless they're your best friend or your cousin, or they owe you money, they're not going to be in your movie," he says. "It's just not going to happen. People say, 'I'll only do it if I can get Jude Law,' and it's a joke. It doesn't work that way."
That said, when Perkins's producer said Nicolas Cage — an actor who's Hollywood royalty, an Academy Award winner, and currently experiencing a tremendous second moment of fame — wanted to portray the film's villain, he jumped on the opportunity.
"The next thing you know, Nicolas Cage wants to talk to you on the phone, and that's happening, and he's leaving you voicemail and then it starts," he says.
Perkins says that, initially, he had the urge to just defer to Cage wherever possible, but when the actor gave his stamp of approval to the script, it gave him a major confidence boost.
"The first call I had with Nic, I said, 'You can throw out all of it,'" he says. "'You're Nicolas Cage, you probably know better than me. You don't have to say any of the things that I wrote.' He said, 'No, no no no no no no. I want to say everything that you wrote. That's all I want to do. I don't want to change anything.' So in that moment, you're feeling pretty good."
What Cage did do, though, was start interpreting Perkins's script in ways he had never even thought of.
"What if we kind of press the idea of someone who is really busted by plastic surgery?" he says, explaining Cage's suggestions. "That's in the script, that's on the page. So when he reads the script for the first time, he sees that, and he really wants to do that. He really wants to disappear under the makeup. It's something Nicolas Cage has never really done in his storied career, which is kind of amazing if you think about it."
He adds that, if there's one thing he took away from the experience, it was how deeply Cage loves his job.
"Everything Nic does is with love," he says. "Everything Nic does is with affection. One of the great things about him is that he's a fan of movies. He loves movies. Like, he worships movies."
The full interview with Osgood Perkins is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Osgood Perkins produced by Lise Hosein.
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