Nicolas Cage "Doesn't Fully Understand" Why He Is So Meme-Worthy: "What Is It?"

Nicolas Cage doesn't “fully understand” why he is often made into memes.

Cage, whose new movie, the meta-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent just had its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival, has trouble wrapping his head around the gazillion memes inspired by his "facial expressions”.

In an interview with the April issue of GQ, Cage, 58, said: "I still don't really fully understand what the fascination is with my face or facial expressions that happen in these memes. I'm like, well, but why? Just like, 'What is it?'"

One of Cage's most expressive roles — one that he almost didn’t take — as Cher’s Loretta Castorini love interest Ronny Cammareri in 1987's Moonstruck, is now a “favourite” of his credits, especially for what it did for the Italian-American community.

He said: “Now looking at it, it's definitely one of my favourite movies I made. Plus, I like the presentation of the Italian-American as a loving family. Not just always the gangster.”

Cage — who was two sons Weston, 31, and Kal-El, 16 — was left with money problems while coping with his father August Coppola’s death at 75, so the National Treasure star was willing to do movies “back to back” to support himself and his ailing mother, Joy Vogelsang, who died last year at 85. August's brother is Godfather auteur Francis Ford Coppola.

Despite criticism about quality over quantity, he insists he was always cared about what roles he did.

He adamantly said: "When I was doing four movies a year, back to back to back, I still had to find something in them to be able to give it my all. They didn't work, all of them. Some of them were terrific, like Mandy, but some of them didn't work. But I never phoned it in. So if there was a misconception, it was that. That I was just doing it and not caring. I was caring."

After getting out of debt, Cage is planning on being “extremely selective” about what he signs on for.

He said: "I'm just going to focus on being extremely selective, as selective as I can be. I would like to make every movie as if it were my last."

Visit GQ’s website to read Cage’s profile. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent opens in Singapore cinemas on Apr 21.