Nicolas Cage returned to a nationally televised talk show for the first time in 14 years on Wednesday when he visited Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC.
And the actor, 58, put on a stellar show, relaying a series of outlandish anecdotes for the promotional stop for his new movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
Nicholas admitted he was ‘a big night for me’ as he made his TV return before launching into tales about how he once spent $80k on a two-headed snake and was keen on adding to his property collection with a bat cave.
He’s back: Nicolas Cage returned to a nationally televised talk show for the first time in 14 years on Wednesday when he visited Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC
The star, who has lived in Las Vegas for 17 years, kicked the tales off by explaining how he once turned $200 into $20,000 on a game of roulette.
‘I did it in about a half hour and I was in the Bahamas. Do you ever have one of those nights where you feel like the mojo is with you and you could just do nothing wrong? Everything was going to go your way,’ Nic asked Jimmy.
Revealing the night occurred 20 years ago Nic said ‘every number I chose, and I often would choose the same number, it kept winning. Even the woman who was spinning the balls said ‘nothing sweeter than a repeater’ …I said this is magic.’
‘The next day I said this is so special, I’m going to go – I found an orphanage. I went across Nassau Harbor. I met all the children and I said to the head mistress this is for you. And put $20,000 cash in her hand and I never gambled again because it would have ruined the magic of that night.’
Hilarious: The actor, 58, put on a stellar show, relaying a series of outlandish anecdotes for the promotional stop for his new movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Talk soon turned to the actor’s eclectic pet collection and how the star once splashed the cash on a two-headed snake.
‘Does that make me impossibly strange,’ Nic said. ‘I did. It’s weird. What happened and it’s odd.’
‘Why I don’t know I was dreaming about two-headed eagles. One night I had this dream and then the next day my manager at the time got a phone call saying ”I’ve got a two-headed snake that I found in Northridge and I think your client Nic Cage would be interested”.’
‘I won’t mention how much it cost because that is going to go everywhere,’ Nic said.
Kooky: Nicholas admitted he was ‘a big night for me’ as he made his TV return before launching into tales about how he once spent $80k on a two-headed snake
‘Impossibly strange’: ‘Does that make me impossibly strange,’ Nic said. ‘I did. It’s weird’
‘More than the orphanage got or less,’ Jimmy asked. ‘More, it was like four times the amount,’ Nic said. ‘I bought it.’
‘They would fight,’ Nic said of the snake. ‘One head was more dominant than the other. Why? It was going to the same stomach. But I would have to put a spatula between the two heads to feed them and it just got a little too freaky for me. So I took it to the Audubon Zoo…It lived for 14 years and it died just recently.’
Jimmy asked him if his reps get a lot of strange calls of people wanting to sell him stuff. ‘I think they have learned if they do get the call, they’ve learned not to tell me,’ Nic said, adding that he currently shared his Vegas home with a ‘very well dressed’ African Pied crow.
Eclectic pet: ‘They would fight,’ Nic said of the snake. ‘One head was more dominant than the other. Why? It was going to the same stomach’
Gave him to the zoo: ‘I would have to put a spatula between the two heads to feed them and it just got a little too freaky for me’ he said before revealing he gave the snake to a zoo
Magazine cover: Jimmy held up a recent GQ magazine cover where Nic was holding up a snake and asked him if it was his
‘He likes to say hi to me when I walk in the room,’ Nic said. ‘He’s very smart and when I leave he says ‘bye.’ I didn’t teach him the words. He just came with the vocabulary. And then one day he called me an a-hole and I don’t know why. It just came out.’
Nic said his crow also likes to jump on people’s heads. He said the crow has a really big 16 food dome that he lives in.
‘I say ”If you want to go in and say hi okay but put these sunglasses on,’ Nic said. ‘Because he has a sharp beak and talons but no ones been hurt.’
Jimmy was keen to find out the truth about other outlandish rumours about the star’s personal life, asking whether it was true that he had bought a bat cave filled with bats.
Creature comforts: Jimmy was keen to find out the truth about other outlandish rumours about the star’s personal life, asking whether it was true that he had bought a bat cave filled with bats
‘I had an interest in exploring all the elements,’ Nic explained. ‘I got a certificate on the Great Barrier Reef. I explored the element of water. Air, I didn’t get as far as I wanted to, I wanted to be a hang glider but it didn’t happen. Fire, I felt like ‘Ghost Rider’ I had explored the element of fire. Then I wanted to explore earth and I want to start spelunking, exploring caves.’
Nic shared that when he was filming the movie ‘National Treasure’ he heard that a cave was for sale and went to look at it.
‘There are all these stalactites and all these milky quartz-like crystalline walls,’ Nic said. ‘At the time, I was married and I thought I wanted to be in, it looked like unfiltered sake. I thought, “I want to buy this and just go down to the bottom of the cave and get totally naked with my wife and drink”‘.
Love: Nicolas said he wanted to buy the cave so he could ‘go down to the bottom and get totally naked with my wife and drink.’ Pictured with his wife Rika Shibata, 28, before the show
‘Needless to say, I didn’t buy the cave, it didn’t happen,’ Nic said. ‘And there were no bats in the cave.’
Jimmy then played a clip from the movie. Jimmy asked him if he had any hesitations about playing a character called Nicholas Cage.
‘As actors we like to hide behind a character,’ Nic said. ‘I was terrified. I didn’t know if they wanted to do some sort of an Andy Samberg ‘SNL’ mock fest. Tom [Gormican] the director wrote me a very intelligent letter. ‘
Nic said Tom explained the nuances of the movie and then he felt that he would be in good hands.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent will be released in US theaters on Friday by Lionsgate.
Fictionalized version: Jimmy asked him if he had any hesitations about playing a character called Nicholas Cage in his new movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
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