Nicolas Cage Reveals Real Reason He Legally Changed His Name

Nicolas Cage hasn't always been Nicolas Cage.

Born Nicolas Coppola, the actor is part of the famed Coppola family-which includes his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola, and cousin Sofia Coppola. He, however, has gone by his stage name since starring in Valley Girl back in 1983.

In a new interview with Variety, the Spider-Noir confirmed he recently took things a step further, legally changing his last name from Coppola to Cage in 2025.

From Coppola to Cage

The actor's chosen name was inspired by Marvel superhero Luke Cage, as well as composer John Cage. He changed it to distance himself from his famous family, in a move to have an identity free from the Coppola name.

When asked by Variety whether it's "strange to still be known as ‘Nicolas Cage,'" the actor insisted it's not.

"No. I am Nick Cage. I changed my name legally last year. I'm Nick Cage in life, and I'm Nick Cage on camera," he shared.

"‘Tis better to be the patriarch of my own little family than the clown cousin on the margins of someone else's, so I decided I'm going to bring it on and be ‘Cage,'" he further explained. "‘Cage' is a name that I liked coming across in the comics - I just thought he had a cool name - and I grew up in a very avant-garde, artsy family and there was talk about John Cage and the experimental compositions that he did."

Cage said he wanted a name that, like James Dean, was "short and sweet."

"I thought, well, I'll keep the name ‘Nicolas' because my father named me Nicolas - with French spelling, which has always frustrated me, because everyone adds an ‘h,'" added Cage. "I don't know why he gave me the French spelling! But he did."

When the reporter said "Nick Cage" also sounded just like a superhero name, he added, "I think so. You think I should've shaved it off and just made it ‘Nick?' I'm both! I think people know me as both."

Nicolas Cage Is Spider-Noir

These days, the actor is going by Ben Reilly, or The Spider, on Spider-Noir. The Prime Video and MGM+ series follows a Spider-Man variant who is also a private investigator in 1930s New York City.

Aside from an 1981 pilot and a few projects in which he appeared as himself, Spider-Noir is Cage's first TV role. In fact, Cage went out of his way to avoid the small screen, until some inspiration from Bryan Cranston and a pep talk from Charlie Sheen.

"I was adamant about not doing television, because I didn't want to do anything that was too homogenized or that was like everybody else," he explained to Variety. "And my son sat me down during COVID, and he showed me Breaking Bad. I began to see that the actors in that show were afforded the luxury of time to tell their story."

"That was the main attraction. I waited for something that I thought would be special, and I can tell you that with Spider-Noir, the vision that I had in my imagination manifested in the exact way that I'd hoped," he continued, calling the experience "scary" and "risky."

Cage also said he asked good friend Sheen-who, of course, starred on Spin City and Two and a Half Men-for advice.

"I was very nervous to do television, I'll tell ya. One of the producers said, ‘We're going to do this read-through because we haven't hit yet with Amazon, and you gotta make sure that during the read-through you don't mumble,'" he recalled. "I was so nervous that I called my good friend Charlie Sheen, who's done a lot of television, and asked him for advice."

"He said, ‘Well, that's the hardest part, Nick - the read-through. So, what is it that you're nervous about?' And I said, ‘One of the producers said, ‘Don't mumble,'" Cage continued. "He said, ‘I'm sorry… who told you not to mumble? Is his last name ‘Sony?'' And I said, ‘No.' And he said, ‘Well, tell him to f–k off!' So, I had a big laugh, went in, and did the read-through."

Season 1 of Spider-Noir is streaming now, in full.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 28, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published May 28, 2026 at 12:18 PM.