During a press tour for his new film Butcher’s Crossing, which world premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Nicolas Cage sat down with Collider at our Studio to talk about why this particular project stood out to him in the pile of scripts that he receives. Set in the 1870s, the movie stars Cage as Miller, a buffalo hunter who lures a young Harvard dropout to an ambitious and dangerous expedition.

While he talked with Collider’s own Steve Weintraub about Butcher’s Crossing, Cage broke down how his gritty lead character was created and revealed two surprising influences behind his performance. The Academy Award winner said that he drew from Marlon Brando’s (The Godfather) performance in the war classic Apocalypse Now!, and… Michael Jordan. But what does a 21st-century basketball star have to do with a buffalo hunter from more than a hundred years ago? Cage explains:

"We all know the phenomenon, and the dynamic force, and the ambition, and the need to win of Michael Jordan. [The director] was saying [to me] ‘Think about that, why don’t you shave your head? Think about that ferociousness that he has on the court, that he has to win at all costs.’ So I did think about it, and then I went ahead and said ‘Okay’. And then I thought about… Because of the ‘Heart of Darkness’ element, which is a similar kind of force of nature… To Miller, I thought of Francis [Ford Coppola]’s movie ‘Apocalypse Now’ and what [Marlon] Brando looked like. It was kind of a combination of Jordan-Brando.”

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Image via United Artists

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Butcher’s Crossing is directed and written by Gabe Polsky, who previously helmed The Motel Life. Polsky adapts the story from the best-selling novel of the same name by author John Williams. Polsy was also present during the interview and revealed that the suggestion to base Miller’s drive on Michael Jordan came from him. The filmmaker said there’s a “darkness” to Jordan that he finds compelling:

“I think Michael Jordan [is the] greatest athlete ever, but there is kind of a – and he’ll say it himself, you know – a sort of dark side to [him]. He would say that nobody can get on his way. He would say things to his teammates, and push them to their limits. A lot of people say he’s kind of a dark guy. And that intensity… So, I think there is kind of a darkness to that kind of intensity and ambition, and I always felt that from him, and that’s why I wanted to talk to Nic [Cage] about Michael Jordan.”

Butcher’s Crossing is yet to get a release date and trailer. Look for our full interview with Cage and Polsky tomorrow.

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