Nicolas Cage Will Never Play Another Character Like Longlegs For One Reason

Combining a grounded police procedural with occult-tinged horror might not always work, but Osgood Perkins' "Longlegs" makes it work, and then some. The terror-inducing aura of Neon's latest offering sustains it from start to finish, with the restrained jump scares heightening the experience instead of cheapening it. The film languishes in the latent fear of the unknown, the dark, empty spaces that surround us at night, and the secrets that define our worldview since childhood. The titular figure, Longlegs (played by an unrecognizable Nicolas Cage), can be glimpsed from time to time — but these measured windows into evil are more than enough to rattle us, along with FBI junior agent Lee Harker (the brilliant Maika Monroe), who has no choice but to face such horrors head-on.

As astonishingly solid "Longlegs" is, it was a pleasant surprise that the film managed to pull in $22.6 million domestically in its opening weekend, as indie horrors often do not get their dues at the box office. Turns out, "Longlegs" is all about defying expectations, right from the jaw-dropping opening that forces us to sit up and take a closer look, to the titular killer whose unpredictability keeps us on the edge of our seats while the score ramps up. Both Monroe and Cage give the movie a sense of humanity, and Cage's performance emerges as one of his finest: in my opinion, it's only behind his somber, meditative turn in Michael Sarnoski's "Pig," and his intense, revenge-fueled Red Miller in Panos Cosmatos' "Mandy."

Although Cage is well-versed in slipping into the shoes of characters that tend to be singular or eccentric, he stated in an interview with The New Yorker that he won't be playing another character like Longlegs, as that is not what he would like to do.

To put yourself in the headspace of a character like Longlegs can be emotionally exhausting, but Cage took the role as a challenge to play a character that did not look or speak like he did. The actor went into detail about this sentiment in the New Yorker interview, underlining his absolute pleasure in playing "an eclectic range of characters:"

"But to challenge myself and to play characters that don't look like me and don't talk like me [...] Who can keep changing? That's one element. The other element is how truthful do I feel that they are in the moment? How real? Are they making me feel something that I can have some compassion for? But I do feel blessed that I've had chances to play an eclectic range of characters—and particularly Longlegs, who is nothing like anyone I've played before."

Having said that, Cage also talked about the industry's tendency to typecast characters after a particularly buzzy role, anticipating offers to play serial killers or roles of a similar variety, and expressed his reluctance to go down that route:

"I know that the phone's going to be ringing off the hook to play serial killers after 'Longlegs.' And that's not really what I like to do. I don't like violence. I don't want to play people who are hurting people."

That sounds straightforward enough, and this reasoning only makes his Longlegs all the more unique, allowing us a peek into the madness unleashed in the terrifying, hopelessly bleak world of the film.

"Longlegs" is currently playing in theaters.