Nicolas Cage Talks 'Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance'

Nicolas Cage has spoken to I09 about suiting up once again as Johnny Blaze in 'Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance:'

We're very excited for the new Ghost Rider film, where will the audience find (your character) Johnny Blaze in the next film?

He's become a lot more sarcastic, now that his head has been ignited. Unlike the first one where he was trying to keep it at bay. Now he's been living with the Ghost Rider for some time, there's a lot more irony with the character. His outlook isn't as quite naive as it once was. And also I'm very excited about what we're getting up to with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor [the directors], they are very original in terms of their film making. Mark is doing things I've never seen a director do before — filming on roller blades, hanging on wires — it's like a stunt man, camera operator and director all in one. Brian Taylor is really so knowledgeable about film. In the same conversation, in the same sentence even, I can talk about Michael Powell's Peeping Tom and then go into Ishirô Honda's The War of the Gargantuas. He's the reason why I'm playing the Ghost Rider as well. He really was an advocate of that, and inspired me to take that on. As a result of that we're getting into some really abstract stuff that I think will mess with people's minds. I'm really looking forward to it.

Those two are exceptionally original. How else are they changing the tone of the first film, is it even similar to the original?

It is a completely different film. The first one, which I won't denigrate — I liked the first one, but it was almost like a fairy tale. Almost like a Disney fairy tale interpretation of Faust. This one is completely re-conceived, it's not even connected to the first one, it's a different origin sequence. But I think it will be a brand new experience. It has more adrenaline involved in the film making process itself, and in the movie when you see it. Again, I think the stuff we're able to get into with Ghost Rider is going to be a lot more abstract and not like anything you've seen before. So I'm very excited by it.