Nicolas Cage has explained the reasons behind making his famous name official, after legally changing it in 2025.
The actor, celebrated for performances in Con Air, Ghost Rider, and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, is set to lead the new Amazon Prime series Spider Noir. In the run-up to the project, he also spoke about the moment his professional name became his legal one.
Although audiences have known him as Nicolas Cage for years, that wasn’t the name on his documents for most of his career.
That only changed in 2025, when he formally updated it so that “Nicolas Cage” became his name off screen as well as on it.
Asked by Variety if it was ‘strange’ to go by a stage name, the star said: “I changed my name legally last year. I’m Nick Cage in life, and I’m Nick Cage on camera.”
He also shared where the ‘Cage’ surname originally came from, explaining that he was influenced by Marvel comics—particularly the character Luke Cage, known for his unbreakable skin.
Cage said: “Cage is a name that I liked coming across in the comics – I just thought he had a cool name – and I grew up in a very avant-garde, artsy family and there was talk about John Cage and the experimental compositions that he did.”
So while the choice began as a creative one, his original surname also played a role in why the name mattered.
Before making “Cage” official, his legal last name was Coppola—linking him to the famous filmmaking family, including his uncle Francis Ford Coppola.
He was born Nicolas Coppola, and he was even credited under that name early on, including in Fast Times at Ridgemont High before he adopted “Cage” professionally.
Cage has said he wanted to carve out a career on his own terms, rather than be defined by the expectations that came with the Coppola name, saying: “‘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’.”
Even so, he didn’t want to completely reinvent his identity—choosing to keep the first name he was given.
“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.’ I don’t know why he gave me the French spelling! But he did,” Cage explained.