Born Nicholas Kim Coppola in Long Beach (California) on the 7th of January, 1964, young Nic had a heavyweight name to live up to. Both his parents were successes in themselves - his father, August, was a professor in comparative literature at Cal State, Long Beach (later the Dean of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University) and his mother, Joy Vogelsang was a renowned dancer and choreographer. Yet the family contained bigger names still. Nic's aunt was Talia Shire (star of the Rocky series), and Nic's uncle was no less than Francis Ford Coppola (director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now).

He'd sometimes spend the summer in San Francisco with Uncle Francis, growing close to his cousins, Roman and Sofia Coppola, his influences were not simply filmic. His mother was a depressive, spending long periods in hospital, but her naturally surreal and wholly idiosyncratic worldview had a mighty impact on her son (he loves to improvise, often infuriating his fellow actors - later David Lynch would call him "a jazz musician of an actor. Completely unafraid", while Jim Carrey says he has "elephant balls"). August, his father, and Joy divorced when Nic was 12, and the boy moved with his father to San Francisco. Here August schooled the boy in a wide range of artistic pursuits, including film, literature and classical music.

It was in a summer class at age 15 that Nicholas fell in love with the craft they call acting. He decided that cinema was for him, and immediately enrolled in the Young Conservatory, part of San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. He lasted only one summer, but never lost sight of his vocation. The family returned to Southern California, where he attended Beverly Hills High School. There he studied theatre but, valuing work experience over academic education, he began looking for acting roles immediately, appearing in the TV show Best Of Times while still at school. Passing a proficiency test, he left High School early to concentrate on acting full-time.

At first, the famous name was helpful. As Nicolas Coppola, Nic got a part in Cameron Crowe's debut movie, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, however his part was cut drastically, so... Crushed, he took to selling popcorn at the Fairfax Theatre - but thankfully not for long. Next came his first lead role, in Valley Girl, a movie inspired by Frank Zappa's hilarious track of the same name. But Nic had realised that, carrying the Coppola name, people tended to view him differently, they didn't take him for what he was or might be. So, in homage to black comic-book hero Luke Cage (Nic has a massive comic-book collection and believes their stories and characters work as a modern-day mythology), he became Nicolas Cage.

Though the name was a pain, he was still close to his Uncle Francis. He agreed to help out by reading with actors auditioning for Coppola's next project, Rumble Fish, and - so impressive was he - he got a part in the movie. By now, Cage was into The Method, hurling himself into research, desperate to fell the part. No surprise then that his next film, Racing With The Moon - concerning two 1942 Marine inductees about to leave for war - with another actor of severe intensity, Sean Penn.

He went on to star in movies like Valley Girl (his first role as a leading man), and Peggy Sue Got Married (opposite Serial Mom Kathleen Turner). Though his performance didn't exactly win raves, he got the biggest breaks of his early career - featured roles in Moonstruck, as Cher's opera-loving, gloved love interest, and Joel and Ethan Coen's Raising Arizona. Both films gave Cage a rolling start in Hollywood. It also began a reputation for being one of the quirkiest actors in the business. He trashed his trailor while filming The Cotton Club, and rumor has it that had two teeth pulled - minus Novocain - for his role in Birdy. In 1990, he astonished moviegoers eveywhere when he ate a cockroach in Vampire's Kiss. Then there was Time To Kill, about an Italian soldier bedevilled by his own capacity for rape and murder. Next came the romantic comedies Honeymoon in Vegas, which also starred James Caan and Sarah-Jessica Parker, and It Could Happen to You, costarring Bridget Fonda and Rosie Perez. Mainstream comedy soon followed, with a role opposite Shirley MaClaine in Guarding Tess. He even dabbled in indies with Deadfall, directed by brother Christopher.

Then it all came together. Mike Figgis's Leaving Las Vegas was hardly hit material. Based on a true story, it concerned an alcoholic writer who holes up in Sin City with a friendly whore and proceeds to purposefully drink himself to death. Cage, of course, went at it tooth and nail. First he researched the role by visiting Ireland, gaining experience of "the land of great writers and drinkers", then he filmed himself guzzling gin and studied his own slurred speech and clumsy movements. Drawing a sense of loss and hopelessness from his recent break-up with his fiancee, model Kristen Zang, he was shockingly good and, incredibly for the star of such a relentlessly miserable movie, took the Oscar for Best Actor.

Now the big offers came flooding in and Cage embraced them. He played reluctant hero Dr Stanley Goodspeed in The Rock, out-schizoed John Travolta in John Woo's Face/Off and created another reluctant hero in the absurdly explosive Con Air.

After this trio of action hits, he spread his wings once more. He descended into the porno underworld in Joel Schumacher's seedy and riveting thriller 8mm, starred opposite Meg Ryan in the twee romance City Of Angels, and then as the manic ambulance driver in Scorsese's Bringing Out The Dead.
These would build to an enormous pay-day when he received $20 million for his part in Gone In 60 Seconds. Concerning a team of expert car thieves carrying out the biggest appropriation of other people's vehicles in history, it made Cage very rich but, favouring style over any substance whatsoever, made most viewers very unhappy indeed.

Bringing Out The Dead marked the first time Cage had worked with his wife, Patricia Arquette. He'd met her in the early Eighties and, in true Cage style, proposed to her within minutes. She'd thought he was joking and gave him a list of Herculean tasks to perform in order to win her. As he began to work his way through the list, she was spooked and avoided him for years. Cage moved on to Wright, and Uma Thurman, Zang and Doors actress Kristina Fulton who he dated for several years and with whom he had a son - Weston Coppola Cage - in 1992. Then he met Arquette once more and his second proposal was accepted. They married in 1995 and their relationship was famously tempestuous. Cage filed for divorce in February, 2000, only to withdraw his appeal two months later. By 2001, though, it was all over.

Still Cage's personal life kept the tabloids in a feeding-frenzy. As Sailor Ripley in Wild At Heart, he'd been an Elvis fanatic and many believed this to mirror a real-life fascination with the King. What a furore, then, when in 2001 he began dating Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie. Had she, after a failed marriage to Michael Jackson, fallen for another of the world's most loopy artists? Was he simply collecting the rarest and most precious item of Elvis memorabilia? No one was surprised when, having married in Hawaii in August 2002, Cage had filed for divorce by November. Many reasons were given. Some said that Presley could not tolerate the time Cage spent with old flame Kristina Fulton and son Weston. Others said Cage was raging against the loss of his bachelor life and piqued by Presley's making him sell his comic collection (he made $1.5 million) and his classic cars. More likely it was pressure of work, with Presley attempting to launch a career as a pop star and Cage in the middle of an almighty run of work.

He'd begun the millennium by filming Captain Corelli's Mandolin, an epic tale of love and betrayal in WW2 Greece, based on the hit novel by Louis de Bernieres. After, Cage would return to John Woo with Windtalkers, another WW2 movie, but this time set in the Pacific.
In 1999, he started his own Production Company called Saturn Films. Saturn was born out of the desire to create films that actors want to do. His first movie as a producer with Saturn, ' Shadow of a Vampire' , released in 2000 and was received with critical acclaim.

Then there was Sonny, Cage's directorial debut, based on a tale by ex-jailbird John Carlen. Cage had been pushing the project for years, here James Franco play the ex-gigolo pushed back into his old life by his mother Brenda Blethyn, a madam who'd like to rejuvenate her business using her son and teen whore Mena Suvari. Set in New Orleans in the early Eighties, it was depressing but moving stuff, and was nominated for the Grand Special Prize at Deauville. Cage briefly appeared himself as Acid Yellow, a coke-addled pimp who keeps trying to get Franco to service men, too.

2002 also brought Adaptation, another Cage triumph, here you see Cage, as in Face/Off, playing dual roles: Kaufman himself and Kaufman's fictional brother Donald. So skilful had Cage now become that, despite no make-up being employed, you could tell the two characters apart before they said a word. Quite rightly, he was Oscar-nominated once more.
The next year, 2003, would bring another challenge when he played a lifelong grifter in Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men. He was wildly neurotic and painfully phobic, driven into therapy and then further confused by the appearance of long lost daughter Alison Lohman, just a teenager but nevertheless keen to join in the big scam.
It becomes ever more unlikely that this immense fan of comic-books will fulfil his dream of playing Superman. Though he was cast by Tim Burton and even fitted for the costume, the project fell through.
Now, Cage is on theatres with National Treasure, playing Benjamin Franklin Gates - who descends from a family of treasure-seekers - who've all hunted for the same thing: a war chest hidden by the Founding Fathers after the Revolutionary War. However Nicolas has completed his newest movie The Weather Man (Dave Spritz is his character) and he's filming Lord of War, plus he has Ghost Rider on pre-production.