Not all superheroes are nice, good-looking people in spandex: take Marvel Comics’ Ghost Rider, for example: Not only is the source of his power from the darkest corner of Hell, but when he’s out fighting for what’s right, he takes the form of a badass biker in a chains and a spiked leather jacket, and his head erupts into a flaming skull. As Ghost Rider prepares to steer his Hellcycle into theaters next year, Hollywood.com took a spectral tour of the minds of stars Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes, along with director Mark Steven Johnson.
Hollywood.com: Nic, I understand you’ve been a Ghost Rider fan since you were a kid?
Nicolas Cage: Oh yes, absolutely. I enjoyed the image of the skull on fire when I was a boy, and the mythology of it. The Faust-like storyline was so original for a Marvel comic book character. There isn’t really any other one quite like Ghost Rider, and that’s why I think that he’s fresh. I think that it’s time for a new kind of superhero. I’m speaking to the Ghost Rider fans. [Laughs] Let’s step out. We all know who we are.
HW: There have been several times where you’ve almost played a comic book hero, from Superman to Constantine. How gratifying was it for you to finally bring a character you love to the screen?
Cage: It was wonderful for me, because as you know it’s been a long time that I’ve been trying to do it, but I’m a big believer that the right character is the one that ultimately happens. While I enjoyed Superman [Returns], I enjoyed the new movie, I think that Brandon [Routh] was the right choice for that part, and I absolutely think that Ghost Rider is the right choice for me to play. It’s a better match. I’m glad that it worked out this way, and I want you all to see it.
HW: Is that almost always you as Ghost Rider, even with the CGI flaming skull added?
Cage: Well, I’ll let Mark [Steven Johnson] talk about that because there was a lot of creative people who worked on the film and they did a lot of creative designing.
Mark Steven Johnson: A bunch of the time it is Nic, and some of the time it’s not—it depends on if there’s a stunt involved. It’s both. It is quite an elaborate get up that they had. Interactive fire has been kind of the bane of our existence these last few years. CG fire is the toughest thing to do. And what we would do is that we would have a green hood on with these lights that would give you interactive lighting on your shoulders. Remove the head and we could put in the skull and the fire and whatnot, but it proved to be a lot more difficult than we thought, because it was real fire for all purposes, but sometimes when you moved the fire wouldn’t move the way it should’ve and it would feel wrong. So it took a tremendous amount of time working, and working on all of Nic’s expressions with the skull—which hard to do without lips or eyes or a tongue and still make it look like it’s Nic.
HW: Nic, you’re known for immersing yourself very deeply into your character—how deep into Johnny Blaze’s, uh, skull did you get?
Cage: I was really invited in early on in the process, and so I like to think that I was building it all up from scratch along with Mark. And as he was writing we would talk, and even right before we went to film in Australia we were coming up with ideas to add on to the character. I think that traditionalists of the comic book will be happy, but we did build up the story and add on to the character. There are little—what can I call it?—habits that he has. He has a fetish for jellybeans and he reads a lot, but he’s something of a cowboy. Mark was very excited about the Western element of the character, harkening back to the original [1950s comic book] Ghost Rider which you’re familiar with, that Sam [Elliot] plays…
Eva Mendes: And he’s a Karen Carpenter fan, which I thought was very interesting.
Cage: Oh, yes. Ghost Rider is a Karen Carpenter fan.
Johnson: I swear this will make sense. I swear. [Laughs]
Cage: The way that I thought of that is that I remember when I was in a dental chair they’re always playing these very soft and soothing types of music, and Johnny Blaze is sort of literally sitting in a dental chair every second of the day wondering when the Devil is going to come and claim his purchase. So I think that he’s constantly trying to relax and so instead of the bourbon-drinking, chain-smoking badass I think that he’s such a badass that he needs to calm down with Karen Carpenter and jellybeans.
HW: What’s your favorite Ghost Rider incarnation from the comics?
Johnson: Which is my take? Mine is the original. Mine is Johnny Blaze. It’s really pretty much the classic story. Very few changes [in ours], but it’s all about selling your soul and in our case it’s the father, not the step father, but the father who has lung cancer who having to leave the girl behind was cursed and having to hit the road—all of that stuff is in. What I got from the later, the Danny Ketch era, which I loved graphically and thought was always really beautiful, was some of the looks—The spiked jacket with the big chains. This isn’t the blue full-body jumpsuit and the motorcycle that he had in the early comics. I wasn’t a big fan of that. I thought that we could do better, but the actual look with the chain around his head and the spikes, that was all the later stuff from the Ketch years, which I liked a lot. And the Caretaker from the Ketch years was a character that I always liked a lot and I wanted to find a way to use him, as was Blackheart. So a lot of it was taken from later, but the origin and the heart of it and the soul of it was from the Blaze years.
HW: Eva, how does your character fit into the storyline?
Mendes: I play Roxanne Simpson, Johnny Blaze’s long-lost love. And I think that what changed—I was really happy that Mark kind of took a chance on me because the original Roxanne was actually his step-sister, correct? So he changed that, and so it’s no longer that. That’s kind of weird. [Laughs] I don’t know. I’m open, but I’m not that open. So I’m glad he changed that story point, and then Roxanne in the comic book had blonde hair and blue eyes and was just different visually from me. So I’m glad that he took a chance and gave it a little flavor, a little spice.
HW: What was the primary allure for you to do a comic book film?
Mendes: Well, two of the allures are sitting right next to me. I’m a huge Nic Cage fan and obviously Mark Steven Johnson, I love this dude. And then I really didn’t know much about comic books at all, but then speaking to these guys and getting into it a little bit I honestly just wanted to have some kind of FX. I had a little superhero envy because I really wanted some kind of extra arm. I don’t know. Something. No. I really enjoyed playing Roxanne. She’s lovely. She’s a reporter and she doesn’t have fire coming out of her skull, but she’s cool.
Johnson: I know what you’re saying. It’s like, “I don’t just want to be the chick.” Cut you later with your dress torn and a shotgun.
Cage: Eva added a lot of fun to the character and to the movie. It was great doing scenes with her and the magic eight ball. Not in the wrong sense, but the ploy that you would ask questions and be really funny in the scenes. She added a lot of humor to it.
[PAGEBREAK]HW: Nic, which comic book characters really grabbed you when you were a kid?
Cage: Definitely Ghost Rider. I like the monsters. I just like them. When I was a kid I fantasized about being able to turn into the monster to scare the bully away, and I think that little boys and girls when they see the werewolf movies like The Wolf Man it’s very exciting. Monsters are fun to play, and with Ghost Rider I got a chance to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. I got to be in a horror film in the grand sense of The Wolf Man and in a comic book-based movie. So to answer your question: Ghost Rider, The Hulk… Those were my real introductions into the comic book world because they stimulated my imagination so much.
HW: How did you like working with a real motorcycle movie icon in Peter Fonda?
Cage: It was great. I’m such a fan of Peter. I grew up watching Peter Fonda, and for me it was the perfect choice in that he was Captain America [in Easy Rider] and I thought that if there was going to be a Luciferian version of a bike film then that would be the perfect choice to get Johnny Blaze to sell his soul, to Captain America.
Johnson: That’s actually the first [Marvel] crossover: Captain America. [Laughs]
HW: You’re no stranger to motorcycles yourself.
Cage: Absolutely. Although, I’ve since stopped riding as much as I once did because I have a baby boy and I don’t want to inspire him to ride motorcycles, but I do ride. Yes.
HW: Was the Hellcycle harder to handle than the average bike?
Cage: Yes, it was—it wasn’t easy at all!
HW: We hear you have a Ghost Rider tattoo as well?
Cage: I have a flaming skull on my arm, yes, but it’s whatever you want it to be.
HW: Do we see that in the film?
Cage: No, no. My tattoos are for me.
Johnson: That was the great irony, that we had to cover up his flaming skull tattoo in the Ghost Rider movie.
HW: The realm of Hell has been explored in some other comic book films, like Constantine. Did you work to differentiate your vision of Hell for this movie?
Johnson: Well, for myself, I actually liked Constantine. I think that it got a bad rap and I think that it’s a better movie than most people gave it credit for, but there have been a lot of movies about this subject. It’s tough because you have to build your own world and I’d never wanted to go into Hell, and I really didn’t want it to be Spawn. That’s not what we wanted to make. I wanted to make something on this world, and it’s far out enough with the flaming skull and a hell-cycle. So we don’t need to be going there, too. So we just had to create our own version of this, I thought, and I thought that using end of days is always fascinating and then you have fallen angels which is fascinating as well. It’s a really fantastic world, and then to put that into the shape of a Western, this gothic Western which I’d never seen before. There is nothing like it.
Cage: Yeah. You have to find the right balance. It’s a very fine line, and you have to blend the joy of absurdity and comedy with truly scary imagery and I think that the best example of that I’ve ever seen before was American Werewolf In London. That was my template, in my mind’s eye, that I wanted to try and aspire to, to get to that zone because I love that movie when I went to see it. I never forgot it.
Johnson: Yeah. If I could say that I’ve always said that that’s closest movie in tone to our movie. American Werewolf In London. It’s got that thing where you’re laughing and it’s really scary and it’s really intense at the same time.
HW: How hard was it to come up with a worthy adversary for someone like Johnny Blaze?
Johnson: Really difficult, because when you’re Ghost Rider you’re the coolest guy in the world. Usually you’re villain was tougher than your hero and so you have to come up with someone who’s even harder. And as far as looks go, no one can look better than the Ghost Rider, no one can be cooler than that and so when we came up with the Blackheart idea—the son of the Devil is hard to beat, too. So we went big. Wes Bentley did a great job in that role. We couldn’t go bigger than that, because Ghost Rider is so big, and so to have a villain that’s even bigger—pretty soon it’s a goofy monster movie and you lose all the human elements of it. So we wanted to try and keep it human.
HW: Are you signed to do a sequel?
Cage: Well, my theory on sequels is that they have to be better than the original. So I’m open, but I just have to see a script and then talk about it, but I loved working with Mark and Eva. It would be great to do something again, but I just want to make sure that we can improve on the original—whatever you can do to keep going and make it one step better. I think that the original is really good. So it would mean a lot of sitting down and thinking about it.
HW: Given your love of the genre, would you be up for starring in another comic book film, outside of Ghost Rider?
Cage: Oh, absolutely. I think that the comic book movie is a wonderful way to entertain a lot of people. People love comic books on film. I knew that it was going to happen because I was enthusiast at a young age and I knew that with modern technology, when they started taking Batman to the screen and Spider-Man, that they were just going to be enormous. But getting back to your question, the thing about comic book films is that it’s a fantasy world and it’s thoroughly entertaining and it doesn’t rely on gratuitous violence and you can charm children and adults alike. I just am very happy for it. I think that it’s almost a perfect medium for film, the comic book-based story structures. I would be happy to do another movie. I think that I would like to try and even generate my own. Just the other day, yesterday in fact, my son Weston and I had a meeting with Virgin Comics and I said that I wouldn’t announce it, but I AM going to announce it: Weston has developed a character and they agreed to five issues of it. So we’ll see how that works out.
HW: How about you, Eva?
Mendes: Yeah. I just need something, some kind of power. Give me some kind of cool visual power thing. Sure. Something. Anything!
HW: How does Ghost Rider fit in alongside the rest of the heroes in the mythology of comic book movies?
Johnson: I think that what makes this one so different for me, because there are a couple of different themes in the movie, is this one is really about choice. That’s something that Nic had come up with during the shooting about second chances and about how everyone deserves a second chance and it’s a big theme in the movie obviously showing it in the most graphic way that we could and the most horrifying and interesting and dramatic way that we could. But I felt like there were really big themes in this film. When you’re dealing with heaven and hell you’re in a big playground. It’s not a character who puts on spandex and fights evil. It’s so different and people keep saying comic book movie and superhero movie, and it is, obviously it’s a comic book, but it’s he’s a superhero of a very different sort. So I don’t think that there’s been one like it in quite a long time. I always felt that Nic was like the Lon Chaney of his generation in a way which for me—I hope that’s a compliment to you because it’s the biggest compliment I can give—but when you see him, you’ll see it today, these quick cuts him transforming, it’s fantastic. If it was black and white it would be awesome. It would be Lon Chaney, it would be Bela Lugosi. It’s fantastic. I mean, no one could do it like Nic could though. The thing that’s most different is having Nic in a role like this and having someone who loves it as much as he does and having to work with themes that are so big.
HW: Nic, you were a collector for a long time. Do you still have all of your original Ghost Rider comic books?
Cage: Oh, absolutely. I would never sell those. They’re in a special room upstairs framed and on the wall.
HW: Is there ever a chance that if the studios and producers are all willing to play along, we might one day see some Marvel superhero crossover films? It’s one of the most fun aspects of the comic books.
Johnson: I would love that. It would be so cool.
Cage: I mean, look, I would like to see that. To actually have the comic book characters team up? Yeah, because, and once again I’m speaking to the Ghost Rider family—we all know that Ghost Rider can kick Spider-Man’s ass with one look at him, and I want to see that happen! [Laughs]
