Nicolas Cage: I changed my name legally last year

LOS ANGELES— Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage, whose real name is Nicolas Kim Coppola, adopted his stage name as his legal name last year.

The actor told Variety in an interview, where he also said he would rather be the patriarch of his own family than the “clown cousin” of Hollywood royalty, reports people.com.

“I am Nick Cage. I changed my name legally last year,” the Spider-Noir said.

“I'm Nick Cage in life, and I'm Nick Cage on camera. ‘Tis better to be the patriarch of my own little family than the clown cousin on the margins of someone else's, so I decided I'm going to bring it on and be ‘Cage.' ”

The actor took his last name from the fictional Marvel Comics character Luke Cage, and said his family also talked about avant-garde artist John Cage. He was also looking for a “short and sweet” name, similar to James Dean.

“I thought, well, I'll keep the name ‘Nicolas' because my father named me Nicolas — with French spelling, which has always frustrated me, because everyone adds an ‘h,' ” Cage explained.

“I don't know why he gave me the French spelling! But he did.”

He also said he doesn't care if people call him “Nick” or “Nicolas.”

“I'm both! I think people know me as both,” Cage said.

Cage is the son of the late August Coppola, the older brother of Francis Ford Coppola and Talia Shire. Other famous members of the Coppola family include Francis' daughter, Sofia Coppola, and Shire's son, Jason Schwartzman.

While making Fast Times, Cage said people would constantly walk up to him and say things like “'I love the smell of Nicolas in the morning,' ” referring to a famous line in his uncle Francis' film, Apocalypse Now.

“I decided, I don't need this, and I changed it to Cage,” he told Wired in 2022.