Nicolas Cage, the man whose face launched a thousand memes, publicly addressed his Internet fame at a widely attended SXSW panel in the Austin Convention Center this morning.
Most of Mr. Cage’s conversation, which was led by Joe director David Gordon Green, focused on the renowned actor’s delightfully diverse film career. Thankfully, Mr. Cage also found time to talk a little about #tech.
First of all, he very firmly stated that he doesn’t use Twitter.
“I’m not in the social media realm,” he said, clearly referring to the operation of his own accounts, and not to glorious things like this “Wrecking Ball”-inspired Vine.
Mr. Cage is also a big fan of FaceTime, which he recently used to communicate with his family while working on a film in Romania.
“I do find that that has been an enormous help with my relationship with my eight-year-old — to be able to see him and talk to him, [and] with my wife,” he said. “… It does make you feel like you can keep that intimacy.”
Then there was the climax of the panel (for Betabeat, at least), when an audience member asked Mr. Cage how he felt about being a meme.
“I don’t know where to begin with that,” Mr. Cage said. “I try not to think about it. It’s okay. It is today. It’s part of the Internet — a big part of it. I don’t know why it happened…People that are far more famous than me, it doesn’t happen to them. I don’t know why.”
Oh come on, Mr. Cage. Who else could pull off something like this?
Now let’s just all enjoy this amazing Vine for a while: