Looking back, one of CagesFast Timescostars hopes he didnt cause him too much pain.
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Cage soon resolved to break out from under Coppolas long shadow with a new name.
Fast Times at Ridgemont Highwas supposed to be Cages big break.
Fast Times at Ridgemont Higharrived in 1982, one of the historic transitional years for American cinema.
The screenplay was written byRolling Stonejournalist Cameron Crowe and based on his 1981 book.
It was like, heres that world they function in, Heckerling later reflected.
Heres what you grown-ups dont see.
So did casting director Don Phillips.
A lot of people read for that part, Phillips said in an interview conducted shortly before his death.
But Nick was head and shoulders above all the Brads.
At that time, he was Nick Coppola, said Phillips.
Inexperience wasnt a problem.
I saw something in Nick that was special.
And I thought he could be the perfect Brad, Phillips said.
Brad was a little inexperienced with girls, with studies, with work.
I saw that [Cage] had a lot of those qualities.
He was new and he was young and he was ambitious.
He wasnt a traditional, good-looking American boy, says Heckerlings then-assistant, Carrie Frazier.
But there was something that was so engaging and so soulful.
I felt like he was somebody who could [play] wounded very easily.
Phillips told the films producer, Art Linson, that they had found their Brad.
The next step was for Cage to read for the part in front of Linson and Heckerling.
Nick came back and he read great, Phillips said.
I said, Hes the one!
Cage returned and auditioned again.
Amy kept rejecting him.
She really wanted Judge [Reinhold], Phillips says.
Heckerling, however, maintains she wanted Cage too.
There was no other contender.
He was the only one I was considering, the director says.
There was something so lovable and goofy about him.
The part was somebody that thinks theyre hot shit, but you would sense the vulnerability.
I felt like that was just there perfectly.
So why didnt he get cast?
Heckerling is deliberately vague on this question.
She was told, after seeing many people and calling back Nick repeatedly, that I couldnt use Nick.
(She wont say who issued this decree or why.)
And then I was desperate, Heckerling adds.
I was like, Oh God, lets call in Judge.
Reinhold was a friend.
He lived in her building and was dating her close friend and assistant Frazier.
Heckerling would later say this was a practical decision: Cage was underage.
(Cage has denied that he ever lied about his age.)
He was wonderful, the director says.
He did want to do a bunch of improvs, and some of them were a little kooky.
Hed say something, and the crew would look at each other like, What?
Eric Stoltz recalls messing around with Cage and other actors outside their makeshift trailers.
We were a bunch of young teenagers, most of us doing our very first movie, Stoltz says.
Just like high school, we settled into our various cliques.
The lead actors were working most of the time.
But us smaller roles, we spent a lot of our days sitting around the honeywagons.
The shoot proved formative for the films stars, but it was miserable for Cage.
Other actors mocked him for being a Coppola.
The experience helped motivate his decision to shed his troubled surname.
I was pretty much the nerd to everybody, Cage later toldEntertainment Weekly.
In multiple interviews, he singled out Stoltz as a source of particularly merciless teasing.
Nick was one of the younger ones, Stoltz says.
He was big for his age, and he was quite bold and animated.
In the midst of all this hanging around, on occasion he would drop his uncles name.
Which isnt a crime, but it didnt feel very good.
So we would give him guff about it until he stopped.
I remember us all laughing and having a good time, Stoltz continues.
In retrospect, we were undoubtedly envious of his God-given Hollywood access.
And he was probably a bit insecure behind all that bravado.
But I certainly didnt have the maturity to understand any of that.
So yeah, I did take part in the teasing and Im sorry I did.
I do hope that didnt cause him too much pain.
