Here's The Story Behind Nicolas Cage's Deeply Unsettling Longlegs Transformation
Between its wave of critical acclaim, the presence of one of Hollywood’s most intriguing A-list actors and even its own alphabet to decode, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into when it comes to the new horror movie Longlegs.
Nicolas Cage underwent another of his trademark transformations to play the titular serial killer, donning elaborate facial prosthetics to make him completely unrecognisable in the role.
And all of that work pays off, with the Oscar winner totally disappearing into the character of Longlegs, whose image is completely obscured from all of the film’s promotional material and is actually only revealed fully within the movie as the action unfolds.
The question is – how exactly did the team settle on Longlegs’ physical appearance
According to Polygon, director Osman Goode had a “glam rock vibe in his head” when putting together the character, before deciding the character should look as though he’s had several botched facial surgeries.
“His jam is really that he’s trying to make himself beautiful for the devil,” special effects makeup artist Harlow MacFarlane explained. “He’s in love with the Devil, and he’s trying to impress the Devil, so he’s gone through all these plastic surgery botch jobs to make himself look as pretty as he can for the Devil.
“Every thing he does is for this evil force that he’s trying to impress.”
Harlow added that the prosthetics were created with the idea that Longlegs would have undergone facial work with a “hack job of a doctor in a strip mall somewhere”.
In a separate interview with Deadline, Oz made it clear that he wanted Longlegs to come across as a “shitty person who’s been through the wringer”.
“It’s not interesting to have someone who’s worked for the devil be like, ‘Ooh, man, you know what I love? Working for the devil’,” the filmmaker insisted. “I think it’s more like, ‘Man, I’ve been working for the devil, and sometimes it’s really hot, and sometimes I really get off on it, and sometimes it’s a fucking drag’. Like life, right?
“Like sometimes it’s really too much, and he’s thinking, ‘I’ve lost the colour in my hair, and I ruined myself with plastic surgery, and I’m fucking sad, and I’m just trying to be nice to this little girl at a hardware store, and she thinks I’m a fucking creep, because I am a creep, and I’m gross, and I’m lonely, and I’m sad, and I’m the monster, but I’m also lonely and sad’.”
Meanwhile, Oz recently lifted the lid on another of the film’s biggest mysteries – how he came to land on Longlegs’ unique moniker.
Longlegs is in cinemas now.