Nicolas Cage Planning To Do A Musical, Even Though He Can’t Sing
Nicolas Cage is interested in starring as Pontius Pilate in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar.
Nicolas Cage is known for a long list of things. A wide swathe of very odd movies, strange art collections, and even believing he was an alien as a child. However, he’s never been known to be a great singer but that won’t stop Nicolas Cage from wanting to star in a musical. In an interview with Empire, Nicolas Cage explained:
I haven’t done a musical yet. I’d like to try that. I’m not much of a singer. I did sing okay in Wild At Heart, I thought, but I’ve since blown my voice out singing ‘Purple Rain’ incorrectly in karaoke bars. I think I’d make a good Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar.
For any other actor in the industry, this would sound akin to a bad joke told at a release party or laughed about in a high-end bar. Except, this is Nicolas Cage, so it’s not completely beyond the pale that he would go forward with a musical.
Now the film where he does a live singing performance is a deeper cut for most Nicolas Cage fans out there. Wild at Heart (1990) follows the story of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern) as they run from Lula’s mother’s hired hitman and the law as Sailor breaks his parole after killing a man in self-defense.
While the film did win a Cannes Film Festival award, it has mostly become a cult item. However, clips of Cage’s live performance of Elvis Presley’s Love Me naturally exist on the vast ocean of YouTube.
Cage’s singing abilities are up to interpretation but it is a tender moment in a mostly forgotten movie between the National Treasure star and Laura Dern.
Now, in true Nicolas Cage fashion, his wanting to play the part of Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar isn’t as surprising as people might think. Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera that loosely retells the last period of Jesus’s life. Originally written and performed in 1971 by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, a large focal point is Judas’s psychology and his displeasure with how Jesus is leading his disciples.
Jesus Christ Superstar is still being performed today with subtle changes to better reflect modern-day events and politics but the main script and lyrics are full of modern slang and attitudes. For the non-history buffs out there, Pontius Pilate was the Roman fifth governor of Judaea (modern-day Jerusalem) ruling from 26/27 to 36/37 AD. Not much is known about how Pilate achieved the office of the governor but the important fact is that Pilate was the ranking official overseeing Jesus’s trial.
Beliefs differ on how Pilate felt about crucifying Jesus but in Jesus Christ Superstar, Pontius Pilate attempts to defend Jesus, stating that Jesus has committed no crime. An angry mob still demands blood, and having no other choice, Pilate is more or less forced to sentence Jesus to death.
Why exactly Nicolas Cage would want to be the bad guy in the story of Jesus is something only he knows currently. It’s a fact that Nicolas Cage grew up in a Catholic household and still has some beliefs but he’s never been public about what exactly his beliefs are. Time will tell if Nicolas Cage has the chops to pull off a musical or if it will fall on tone-deaf ears.
