Everything is coming up fans of both Hayden Christensen and Nicolas Cage. The two, who worked together on a movie back in 2014, are being gifted with great performances and a return to the golden eras of their careers, and it has meant that there’s been a bit of a cultural shift in how we talk about both actors.
The internet was gifted with an old gem of an interview for the movie Outcast, which starred Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen, that had Cage gushing about Christensen. The Twitter account Star Wars Holocron shared a snippet of an interview for the movie where Cage is praising Christensen’s performance in the prequels and his “edgy” take on Anakin Skywalker.
“I saw the work that Hayden did with George [Lucas], and I was very impressed with Hayden’s…edgy, dangerous, dark, and still soulful performance,” Cage said. “I thought it was superb…I really connected with him.”
So why is this important now? Because most of the internet went from talking about both of these actors as “outcasts” in Hollywood to now being two people we’re excited to see onscreen again. So, let’s talk a bit about the shift surrounding both Cage and Christensen.
From hate to praise
Not to toot my own horn, but I was never part of the group of people who wanted to hate on both of these actors for their roles—but I was online as it happened, so I know the kind of vitriol that existed for fans of either actor. Hayden Christensen was bashed relentlessly after the prequels came out, and even movies like Shattered Glass, where he gave a brilliant performance, were almost pushed aside due to the mindset that Christensen wasn’t good.
The same thing has happened to Cage throughout the years. In movies when Cage understands his character but the movie itself is on a different level, he’s labeled as the bad actor, but I argue that Cage is just on a different level of acting than whatever movie was prepared for, and that’s the movie’s shortcoming.
But all that “hate” that both Christensen and Cage got switched when their careers were embraced with a new sort of appreciation. Things like the movie Pig helped audiences change their views on Cage and see that he’s incredibly talented (even if they shamed him for his prior work), and with Christensen, there became a renewed love of the prequels within the millennial fanbase, and we spoke out about how much we actually loved his Anakin.
So, all of that plays into the new appreciation for a quote like this. Maybe it’s because Hayden Christensen is returning to the world of Star Wars with the upcoming Disney+ show Obi-Wan Kenobi, or maybe it’s just that we’ve switched how we view both Cage and Christensen, but seeing this quote get praised years after the fact makes me very happy not only for Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen, but also for us as fans who have stuck by them through all these years.
(image: Lucasfilm/Lionsgate)
