Nicolas Cage isn’t going to watch his upcoming film, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, in which he plays a fictionalised version of himself.

“I’m never going to see that movie. I’m told it’s a good movie,” Cage told Collider. “My manager Mike Nilon, who is also a producer on it, looked at it. He was very happy. I’m told the audience loved the movie.”

​​“But it’s just too much of a whacked-out trip for me to go to a movie theatre and watch me play (director) Tom Gormican’s highly neurotic, anxiety-ridden version of me. Because he kept pushing me in that direction.”

“I said: ‘Tom, that’s not really me. I’m really (made of) quiet, meditative, thoughtful moments. I’m not this neurotic, high-strung, anxiety-ridden guy all the time.’ But he said: ‘Well, neurotic Cage is the best Cage.’ I said: ‘Okay, okay. Let’s go, man. I’ll do what you want.’”

“I won’t see it. But I do hope you enjoy it,” he added.

Cage’s latest film appearance, Sion Sono’s The Prisoners of the Ghostland, made its debut last week, and stars the actor as a convicted bank robber with grenades strapped to his testicles.

In an interview with Dazed, Sono described working with Cage: “When I saw Nicolas Cage in Tokyo a year before shooting, he mentioned wanting to be like Charles Bronson. I was already thinking that from the script. We clicked immediately and our chemistry was amazing. I thought it’d be a waste to direct him when we have a similar feeling together. I tried not to do anything, and let him do whatever he wanted for the film.”

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent will hit screens April 2022