The prolific actor worries about artificial intelligence replacing art.
After a decades-long career in countless movies and television shows, Nicolas Cage has developed a unique outlook on the entertainment industry. As a new interview with the Longlegs actor reveals, he has some very staunch feelings about the use of artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Cage spoke about an upcoming digital “scan” he has scheduled for the forthcoming Spider-Man Noir series Noir, and how it worsened his worries about the future intersection of artificial intelligence and art. The news of generative AI being used in movies and television has already drawn controversy across multiple projects, including Marvel’s Secret Invasion, Late Night With the Devil, and the recent Netflix documentary What Jennifer Did.
“They have to put me in a computer and match my eye color and change—I don’t know,” he said of the upcoming scan, before joking, “They’re just going to steal my body and do whatever they want with it via digital AI.”
“God, I hope not AI. I’m terrified of that,” he said. “I’ve been very vocal about it. It makes me wonder, you know, where will the truth of the artists end up? Is it going to be replaced? Is it going to be transmogrified? Where’s the heartbeat going to be? I mean, what are you going to do with my body and my face when I’m dead? I don’t want you to do anything with it!”
How Did Nicolas Cage Cameo in The Flash?
Cage’s comments come after he made a surprise appearance in last year’s The Flash movie, playing a deaged version of Clark Kent / Superman from the unproduced 1990s movie Superman Lives. Cage’s cameo was among several from mostly-deceased past DC actors, which drew criticism for being computer-generated. While Cage confirmed to Yahoo Movies that his sequence was not made with AI, the massive changes that were made to the scene definitely surprised him.
“When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider,” Cage revealed. “I did not do that. That was not what I did. I don’t think it was [created by] AI. I know Tim [Burton] is upset about AI, as I am. It was CGI, OK, so that they could de-age me, and I’m fighting a spider. I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what happened there.”
