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Nicolas Cage recalls being cast on The Dating Game when he was 14, but his dad wouldn’t let him do it

Nicolas Cage recalls being cast on 'The Dating Game' when he was 14, but his dad wouldn’t let him do it: 'My audition tape is out there somewhere.'

Despite his dad (August Coppola, brother of director Francis Ford Coppola) shooting down the job, Cage thought he was pretty good (“I got the gig”) and “funny.” He further mused over how the show cast an actual serial killer, Rodney Alcala, noting that audiences are drawn to people who are appealing on the surface, but have a darkness to them. I’m drawn to characters [...] that are complex, and that have multiple facets—you know, Blanche DuBois saying the human heart can’t be straight, or even in Moonstruck, the snowflake speech: 'We’re here to ruin ourselves.” I think that’s just truth. The character of Dan Ferdinand Cobble aka Longlegs, whom he told Entertainment Weekly was inspired by a key memory of his mother, is a Satan worshipper and doll maker who targets families with a 9-year-old daughter born on a specific day.

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