Nicholas Cage talks about being the Ghost Rider

superhero Hype! talked to Nicolas Cage about the highly-anticipated Ghost Rider on Thursday, November 30, 2006 at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery:

Superhero Hype!: Obsession I think would be a reasonably way to describe your feelings about this character - tattoos come to mind, you've been in love with this character for a long time, where does that come from?
Nicolas Cage: Because it's unusual, it's not standard superhero fare, it doesn't follow any of those traditional rules. As a boy I was really attracted to the monsters that were in the Marvel universal, the Hulk and Ghost Rider, because I couldn't understand how something so terrifying could also be good, and it appealed to whatever complexities I was feeling about life, that paradox to me is inherently interesting.

SHH!: How old were you when you first read it?
Cage: I was like seven or eight and I was reading Ghost Rider and The Hulk.

SHH!: The very first?
Cage: Yeah, the very first ones, and I would just sit in my room and stare at the covers, I liked the way they looked. But there's something about the iconography of the flaming skull itself, even going beyond Ghost Rider, I think it's been around for thousands of years, there's something about the flaming skull I think depicts honesty, it's like there's no mask, you can't hide, there it is, it's the truth, and I like that. If you're speaking about my tattoo, I mean I would say it's more akin to that than necessarily the Ghost Rider itself.

You can click on the link below to read the rest of the interview.