Nicolas Cage talks Voodoo and childhood influences at the Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Press Conference

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance rides into cinemas on Friday and follows Johnny Blaze as he hides out in Eastern Europe where he is called upon to stop the devil, who is trying to take human form.

The Fan Carpet were lucky to attend the Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Press Conference with action legend Nicolas Cage at the prestigious Corinthia Hotel in London.

Here he talks about his influences, his childhood fears and why he has no regrets in regards to not playing Superman…

You got to play Johnny Blaze and the Ghost Rider this time around, did that appeal to you?

Yes, that was an opportunity to experiment with movement, and with my state of mind to really believe I was this character. It was actually Brian Taylor that had the idea for me to do that, he was a big advocate of that and we were in New Orleans at the time, first thing I said was 'can I wear a mask?' so I wouldn't feel totally ridiculous as I went on set to play this part.

But there was also a writer called Brian Bates, who wrote the book 'The Way of Weird' and also 'The Way of the Actor' in there, he put forth the notion that all actor whether they know it or not come from a long distant past of Medicine Men and Shaman, and what these Shaman would do is go into an altered state of consciousness to try to find answers and collations to give to the village people, and in this day and age these people would be considered as psychotic.

When you think about it, it was a way of channeling the imagination to talk with spirits to get answers to the village, so they would wear masks, they would gather objects that had magical properties. So I thought 'I'm dealing with a supernatural character, so why don't I try some of that?' So I's paint my face with black and white so it looked like a skull, so it looked like some Afro-caribbean voodoo icon or a New Orleanean voodoo icon by the name of Baron Samedi or Baron Saturday who looks like a skeleton but very finely dressed, he's the spirit of death but he's also the spirit that loves children, he's a very lusty voodoo icon.

And I would paint my face and put black contact lenses in my eyes so that it looked more like a skull, and you couldn't see any pupils or whites of the eyes, I would sew Egyptian artefacts into my costume and got some rocks that had alleged frequencies, and who knows if it works or not, the point is it stimulated my imagination to think I really was this character.

I would walk onto set projecting an aura of horror and I would see fear in my co-stars, it was like oxygen to a fire and that led me to believe that I really was this spirit of vengeance. The problem is, if you have a Christmas party in Romania and shooting until two in the morning and you're invited to the Christmas party and some schnapps is involved and you're still in character, all hell can break loose and it did, I'm lucky I'm not in some Romanian prison.

What about your body language? You move in a very herky, jerky way.

I remember Cobra snakes, cause at one point in my neighbourhood I had a couple of them, but my neighbours didn't like it so I gave them to a Zoo, but I would study these Cobra's and what they would do is move back and forth in a rhythmic motion and on the back of the snake was the pattern of an eye, like an occult eye, and it would try to hypnotise me and when it felt it had hypnotised me, it would strike.

So I thought 'why don't the Ghost Rider move like that?  With that sort of hypnotic, rhythmic motion?' And then there was something else I saw in a Trent Reznor video, where he was levitating and revolving in circles, so I said 'why don't we have the Ghost Rider levitating and revolving in circles' we called it "the compass" where he would find his next victim and then attack. So a lot of thought went into it and a lot of imagination and improvisation, sometimes I would talk in what I thought was a Wotanic, Norse dialog or some sort of Enochian angel speak or something, who knows what was coming out of me, but it was a fun experiment.

Which wouldn't have happened on a mo cap stage…

Yeah, exactly, what you see is really in camera.

From what you've told us about all this voodoo and occult preparation, it doesn't suggest that you could've been in the best state of mind for driving something as dangerous as a motor cycle. I'm sure that every precaution is taken to ensure safety, but did your nearest and dearest had a word with you about taking extra care when on that mighty beast?

No, she loved it, she thought it looked great, she thought it was a very sexy motor cycle and wanted to have a ride on it. The truth is I was blessed to work with the Yamaha Gomez, I'm not a sponsor for Yamaha, I don't have a contract but I have had my experience on several different motor cycles, and they're the best because iIf you think of something that you want the bike to do it will happen, so I could go impossibly fast on the motor cycle and tell it to stop safely and it will.

And I totally trusted that motor cycle and I never got hurt, now my insurance tells me I can't ride a motor cycle in my own life, so I have to do it when I'm working. I'm legally unable to ride motor cycles.

Why's that?

Because it's a contract I have with my life insurance, so whenever I do a movie and I have the opportunity to ride a bike, I go for it.

You said you got in touch with your characters spiritual side in preparation for the movie, did you experience anything inexplicable, anything supernatural while filming?

I'm of the opinion that everything supernatural is in the imagination, and I had wonderful flights of fancy in my imagination whilst playing the Ghost Rider. I can't say that anything outside of the realm of the natural occurred while filming the movie, no.

Is it safe to say that with all of the characters that you've played over the years, that these two by comparison are your favourites and with playing them in more than one movie does the passion for them grow or dissipate?

I felt I had more to say with it, Ghost Rider was a character that had an enormous impact on my childhood, I was eight when I discovered the Ghost Rider, infect I had the very first comic and I would stare at that picture, that cover and I couldn't get my head around how something so terrifying to look at, who was infect using forces of evil could also be considered good. How was this a superhero? So it was like my fist philosophical awakening, here's a character that's literally inspired by Girta, this is a Faustian contract.

But of course it's really all just a metaphor, this movie isn't sanctimonious at all, it's about pop art, it's about having fun, it's about going along for the ride, but in my opinion the 'deal with the devil' happens everyday, everyone sells their soul everyday, it's usually for love, you meet a lady or a gentleman and you think they love you but then you find out that it's for a green card or money or to make you pay for what their parents did to them, that's a deal with the devil. So for me that character and the movie is just a metaphor for life, and if you want to compete in this day and age where every other movie is a comic book movie you have to provide an alternative, and Ghost Rider does that.

READ THE FULL PRESS CONFERENCE HERE

Nicolas Cage Photos | Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance Film Page

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