Nicolas Cage Quotes

You don't know what the country is ready for unless you're pushing that envelope, and I was told that I couldn't develop 'Will and Grace'.

Defying genre conventions is instantly a risky move.

My whole career is based on taking a left turn after each film and doing the opposite of what I've just done.

If a musician dares to get out of the box he's been put in, people get confused. They want people where they can find them! I am fortunate in some respects as I've always been known as someone who 'moves around' and tries different things. But generally, we are supposed to stay where we're put.

As a creator, I always want to betray fans' expectations.

I'm always trying to do weird things - when you have that part of your mission statement as an actor, half of that stuff that ends up being made is probably garbage.

I don't want to just make the safe, easy commercial films.

When it comes to storytelling, not taking risks is riskier than swinging for the fences. I have very simple ambitions when it comes to taking risks in storytelling and programming. I try very hard to avoid the expected.

I think doing variations on a classical theme is a dangerous thing to do.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.

Don't just rehash what came before. Find new things to do with it, in your unique voice.

Everything that an artist does is a risk. Some people want you to stay the same. If you want to evolve, they want to keep you in a certain place.

I guess I much prefer the path of the contrarian: the guy who goes against the grain a bit. The careers of the people who I admire deeply - like the Coen brothers and Soderbergh - don't repeat themselves, and they make radically different films at times, and I think that's wonderful.

If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.

I have a real interest in pushing some of the limits of things that studios don't want to make.

When I was going to get ready to take 'Dietland' up, I have to say I was surprised to find that I felt like maybe we wouldn't find a home for it because it's unlike anything else that I've done.

I'm trying to do different music, and I'm trying to be out of the box.

What people don't realize is that when you start making things outside of the convention of what is normal or good or 'best practices,' you're also shedding some of the baggage that comes with the concept of what a game 'should' be.

If you don't take a risk then what's the point. We can't keep making films in the same space.

Why would we want to do an experimental album? That's just selfish.

Creative life should be more than preaching to the converted, more than going for a core audience of 100,000 people. It should be taking risks, challenging the readership and having enough faith in one's own talent and craft to take readers on that ride.

Here I was, having done a thriller and a horror movie - why did I have the audacity to make a romantic fantasy? How can I continue to make genre films? Well, maybe I don't want to continue to make genre films.

At the end of the day we need to experiment and if we start being too cautious, we'll end up working with the same actors and doing the same roles. That's how people get stereotyped.

I never want to turn something down because I'm afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.