For Sale: 'Evidence' Nicolas Cage Is A Vampire
If we were to tell you that we have a photo showing that Nicolas Cage is a vampire, you would rightfully be unimpressed. Probably, it's a photo of him in makeup as Dracula from his upcoming film Renfield. If not, maybe it's him as a vampire in Vampire's Kiss—probably, it's that one meme photo everyone knows, even those who've never seen the movie.
Unfortunately, while the actual photograph isn't either of those, it is still sort of a meme.
Around a decade ago, a handful of actors who'd first made it in the '80s were approaching age 50. Thanks to good looks, good health, and possibly makeup and photographic touch-ups, they looked quite similar to how they did when they were 30 or even younger. Tom Cruise was one of these celebrities, and Keanu Reeves was another.
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One running joke we had was to find photos from history, or even paintings from centuries ago, of people who looked vaguely like the actors. "This is proof that they're a Highlander," we said. Eventually, the joke died out. Though the actors continued to look good, they did age some, to the point where (of course) you could no longer put photos of their younger selves from 1995 next to them and claim the two faces were identical.
In 2011, Nic Cage was one of those actors—though, with him, it was more a case of him having a uniquely weathered face from an early age than looking eternally young. Seattle antiques dealer Jack Mord dug up a Civil War–era photo of a man who looked vaguely like Cage and offered it on eBay.
"Personally, I believe it's him and that he is some sort of walking undead/vampire, etcetera, who quickens/reinvents himself once every 75 years or so," wrote Mord, and while we can assume he wasn't being serious, Ebay was pretty loose at the time when it came to what you can sell. They freely let you declare the paranormal to be real, or even that your own items were paranormal. Later, when asked to confirm the theory, Cage said, “There is a resemblance, but—how can I be polite about this?—it’s a somewhat slowed down version of me.”
We openly reproduce the photo in this page's banner, because while Jack Mord was selling a print of it, he couldn't sell the rights to it, as copyright doesn't go back that far. He also couldn't say this was the only copy, and his listing made no mention of also including the original glass negative that produced the photo.
Jack Mord gave the photo a price of $1 million. Later, with no offers coming near that, he reduced the price to $200. We don't know what he's doing nowadays, but we assume he's peddling NFTs.
