Nicolas Cage has been in well over 100 movies, including Valley Girl, Raising Arizona, Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, Con Air, Face/Off and many more. But only one of his films evokes so much emotion from fans it leaves him feeling pain.
The 59-year-old Academy Award winner spoke with ET's Rachel Smith on Monday at the New York City premiere of his upcoming horror-comedy film Renfield, and he recalled the bizarre incident that would unfold courtesy of fans enthralled by his 1987 rom-com film, Moonstruck, which also starred the legendary Cher.
"For the longest time, back from Moonstruck, I would walk to the airport and people just had a habit of saying, 'Snap out of it!' from Moonstruck -- the Cher 'snap out of it' [line] -- and I did get slapped a few times," said Cage, whose revelation left his Renfield co-star, Nicholas Hoult, in utter shock.
"No, no!" Hoult reacted.
"Oh yeah, I did," Cage confirmed. "And that, you know, it's part of the job."
As for what could possibly have compelled fans to do such a thing, Cage has floated around a theory.
"I think maybe [they think] I'll cast them in something," he quipped. "Who knows?"
But when it comes to one of his favorite lines ever, Cage recites his iconic line from the 1990 film Wild at Heart, when he's on the dance floor and responds after his snakeskin jacket gets criticized before a brawl breaks out: "And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief and personal freedom."
Meanwhile, Cage is adding to his long list of films, with the Chris McKay-directed Renfield, in which he plays Count Dracula and Renfield's (played by Hoult) narcissistic boss. It's a role Cage salivated over the moment he read the Dracula novel.
"As soon as I read the book Dracula, I thought there was something so deep in the character that was profound and compelling," Cage said. "Dracula, although it's a supernatural character, he's really saying something about the human experience, which is if you supplant an addiction to blood with an addiction to alcohol, or heroin, or sex, you can see that those are human issues that people contend with, and then you factor in eternal life or eternal undead experience, you're going to get ... your heart broken time and time again and be betrayed. And I think that's something people can also relate to."
Renfield hits theaters April 14.
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